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Quickening   /kwˈɪkənɪŋ/   Listen
verb
Quicken  v. t.  (past & past part. quickened; pres. part. quickening)  
1.
To make alive; to vivify; to revive or resuscitate, as from death or an inanimate state; hence, to excite; to, stimulate; to incite. "The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead." "Like a fruitful garden without an hedge, that quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting a prize."
2.
To make lively, active, or sprightly; to impart additional energy to; to stimulate; to make quick or rapid; to hasten; to accelerate; as, to quicken one's steps or thoughts; to quicken one's departure or speed.
3.
(Shipbuilding) To shorten the radius of (a curve); to make (a curve) sharper; as, to quicken the sheer, that is, to make its curve more pronounced.
Synonyms: To revive; resuscitate; animate; reinvigorate; vivify; refresh; stimulate; sharpen; incite; hasten; accelerate; expedite; dispatch; speed.



Quicken  v. i.  
1.
To come to life; to become alive; to become vivified or enlivened; hence, to exhibit signs of life; to move, as the fetus in the womb. "The heart is the first part that quickens, and the last that dies." "And keener lightnings quicken in her eye." "When the pale and bloodless east began To quicken to the sun."
2.
To move with rapidity or activity; to become accelerated; as, his pulse quickened.



noun
Quickening  n.  
1.
The act or process of making or of becoming quick.
2.
(Physiol.) The first motion of the fetus in the womb felt by the mother, occurring usually about the middle of the term of pregnancy. It has been popularly supposed to be due to the fetus becoming possessed of independent life.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Quickening" Quotes from Famous Books



... now as red as it was hot, hers, on the contrary, had become very strange and still and white. For a moment I seemed to read distrust, scorn, even hatred, in her level stare, and something of fear, too, in every quickening breath that moved the scarlet mantle on her breast. Then, in a flash, she had turned her back on me and was standing there in the grey dawn, with both hands over her face, straight and still as a young pine. But my ring was shining on ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... he sings Charms the world's heart. Such immortality Is better than unending lapse of years. For that the great god-gift, Eternal Youth, Accompanies it; the failures, the chill fears Tithonus knew thou may'st be spared in truth, Seeing that thine Aurora's quickening breath Lives in thee whilst thou livest, so that thou Needst neither dread nor pray for kindly Death, Like "that grey shadow once a man." And now, Great Singer, still we wish thee length of days, Song-power unslackened, ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various

... of three acres seemed to roll like a river of green rapids to a little "run" or brook, which, even in the dry season, showed a trickling rill. But here he was struck by a singular circumstance. The garden rested in a rich, alluvial soil, and under the quickening Californian sky had developed far beyond the ability of its late cultivator to restrain or keep it in order. Everything had grown luxuriantly, and in monstrous size and profusion. The garden had even trespassed its bounds, and impinged upon the open ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... whether a sufficient navy would follow; the distance which separates her from other great powers, in one way a protection, is also a snare. The motive, if any there be, which will give the United States a navy, is probably now quickening in the Central American Isthmus. Let us hope it will not come to the ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... protected the lands from sorcery, so that good crops would follow. The ashes were also considered valuable as charms." Hence it appears that the heat of the fires was thought to fertilise the fields, not directly by quickening the seeds in the ground, but indirectly by counteracting the baleful influence of witchcraft or perhaps by burning up ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer


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