Quicken is from Middle English quikenen, from quik ('alive, quick') + -en; quick from Old English cwic ('living, alive'), from Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz. Important recorded forms include cwic (Old English), *kwikwaz (Proto-Germanic), and *gʷih₃wos (Proto-Indo-European). Morphologically, the word preserves a built structure whose named elements carry the historical sense into English. The modern sense remains close to that composition, with the parts narrowing into a single lexical item. In current use it covers to make or become faster, or to come to life. The wider family includes derived forms such as quickener and quickening and related words such as quick, quickly, and quickness.