quick

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Moving or able to move with speed; fast.

   I ran to the station, but I wasn't quick enough.

2. 2
   adj

   Done or happening in a short time.

   Let's have a quick chat before the meeting.

3. 3
   adj

   Able to learn or understand things fast; clever.

   She has a quick mind and learns languages easily.

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Simplified etymology

Quick originally meant “living” or “alive” in Old English, a sense preserved in “the quick and the dead.” From “alive” it developed the senses “lively” and “vigorous,” and by the late 16th century “fast.” The noun quick for the sensitive flesh beneath a nail or hoof also arose from the older sense of living flesh.

From Middle English quik, quic (“living, alive, active”), from Old English cwic (“alive”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwiku (“alive, lively quick”), from Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz (“alive, lively, quick”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷih₃wós (“alive”), from *gʷeyh₃- (“to live”), *gʷeyh₃w- (“to live”). For semantic development, compare lively. Cognate with Dutch kwik, kwiek (“lively, quick”), German keck (“sassy, cheeky”), Danish kvik (“lively, quick-witted, quick”), kvæg (“cattle”), Faroese kvikur (“quick”), Icelandic kvikur (“lively, quick”), Norn kvikk, hwikk (“living, swarming, teeming”), Norwe…

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