Quick
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Template:Wiktionary Quick is a family name, a trade name, and a word in the English language whose meaning has gradually shifted.
People commonly called Quick
- Richard Quick — a women's swimming team coach
- Mike Quick — a former American Football player
- Quick — one of the eponymous characters in Quick & Flupke, a comic book series by Hergé.
- Johnny Quick — two distinct DC Comics characters
Other things commonly known as Quick
- Quick kick — a kick in American football and Canadian football
Quick can be a trade name in countries where English is not the primary language.
- Quick — a fast-food restaurant chain in France and Belgium
Changes in meaning of the word
By origin, and in early and many surviving uses, the word quick meant living, alive. It is common to Germanic languages, confer German keck, lively, Dutch kwik, and Danish kvik; confer also Danish kvaeg, cattle. The original root is seen in Sanskrit jiva; Latin vivus, living, alive; Greek bios, life.
In its original sense the chief uses are such as the quick and the dead, of the Apostles Creed, a quickset hedge, i.e. consisting of slips of living privet, thorn (NB. In Northern Europe, quick-thorn refers to the tree hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), that is commonly used for hedging purposes) etc., the quick, the tender parts of the flesh under hard skin or particularly under the nail. The joke
- "There are two types of pedestrians in Dublin, the quick and the dead"
puns on the two meanings of quick.
The phrase quick with child means pregnant and the quickening is the moment a pregnant mother first feels the child move.
From the sense of having full vigour, living or lively qualities or movements, the word got its chief current meaning of possessing rapidity or speed of movement, mental or physical. It is thus used in the names of things which are in a constant or easily aroused condition of movement, e.g. quicksand, loose water-logged sand, readily yielding to weight or pressure, and quicksilver, the common name of the metal mercury.
Some of the text on this page was adapted from a 1911 Encyclopedia (presumably in the public domain). da:hurtig