quicken
To put (someone or something) in a state of activity or vigor comparable to life; to excite, to rouse.
[…] Italy had quickened Cecil, not to tolerance, but to irritation. He saw that the local society was narrow, but, instead of saying, "Does this very much matter?" he rebelled, and tried to substitute for it the society he called broad.
To stimulate or assist the fermentation of (an alcoholic beverage, dough, etc.).
(literary, also figuratively) To give life to (someone or something never alive or once dead); to animate, to resurrect, to revive.
(archaic) To make or help (something) to burn.
(obsolete) To make (a drug, liquor, etc.) more effective or stimulating.
(obsolete) Of a pregnant woman: to be in the state of reaching the stage of pregnancy at which the movements of the fetus are first felt.
To take on a state of activity or vigor comparable to life; to be excited or roused.
To grow bright; to brighten.
She found no rest, and ever fail'd to draw / The quiet night into her blood, but lay / Contemplating her own unworthiness; / And when the pale and bloodless east began / To quicken to the sun, arose, […]
Of an alcoholic beverage, dough, etc.: to ferment.
(also figuratively) Of a pregnant woman: to first feel the movements of the fetus, or reach the stage of pregnancy at which this takes place; of a fetus: to begin to move.
(literary, also figuratively) To give life; to make alive.
(literary, also figuratively) To come back to life, to receive life.
(rare) To inspire or stimulate.
To make (something) quicker or faster; to hasten, speed up.
Whoever has been much accustomed to visit such manufactures, must frequently have been shown very pretty machines, which were the inventions of common workmen in order to facilitate and quicken their own particular part of the work.
Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.
That day Arya quickened their pace, keeping the horses to a trot as long as she dared, and sometimes spurring to a gallop when she spied a flat stretch of field before them.
(construction, nautical (shipbuilding), archaic) To shorten the radius of (a curve); to make (a curve) sharper, or (an incline) steeper.
To become quicker or faster.
His lips traveled to her wrist and she knew he must fell the leap of her pulse as her heart quickened and she tried to draw back her hand. She had not bargained on this—this treacherous warm tide of feeling that made her want to run her hands through his hair, to feel his lips upon her mouth.
(rare) To apply quicksilver (mercury) to (something); to combine (something) with quicksilver; to quicksilver.
(chiefly Ireland, Northern England) The European rowan, rowan, or mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia).
[…] Miss Wannop moved off down the path: it was only suited for Indian file, and had on the left hand a ten-foot, untrimmed quicken hedge, the hawthorn blossoms just beginning to blacken at the edges and small green haws to show.
(chiefly Midlands (northern), Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) A species of grass, Elymus repens); also, the underground rhizomes of this, and sometimes other grasses.
Quickens-bog may at first seem to derive its name from the plant Quicken, by which, Scotticé, we understand couch-grass, dog-grass, or the Triticum repens of [Carl] Linnæus, and the common English monosyllable Bog, by which we mean, in popular language, a marsh or morass; in Latin, Palus.
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