quick

(kwĭk)

adj. quick·er, quick·est

1. Moving or functioning rapidly and energetically; speedy: an animal that is quick enough to escape most predators.

2. Learning, thinking, or understanding with speed and dexterity; bright: a quick mind.

a. Perceiving or responding with speed and sensitivity; keen: quick reflexes.

b. Reacting immediately and sharply: a quick temper.

a. Occurring, achieved, or acquired in a relatively brief period of time: a quick rise through the ranks; a quick profit.

b. Done or occurring immediately: a quick inspection. See Synonyms at fast¹.

5. Tending to react hastily: quick to find fault.

6. Archaic

a. Alive.

b. Pregnant.

1. Sensitive or raw exposed flesh, as under the fingernails.

2. The most personal and sensitive aspect of the emotions: The remark cut her to the quick.

3. The living: the quick and the dead.

4. The vital core; the essence: got to the quick of the matter.

adv. quicker, quickest

Quickly; promptly.

[Middle English, alive, lively, quick, from Old English cwicu, alive; see g^wei- in Indo-European roots.]

quick′ly adv.

quick′ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adv.

quickest - most quickly

fastest

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References in classic literature

You shall read, in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself, what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed, or tortured, and thereby imagine, what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted, and dissolved; when many times death passeth, with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts, are not the quickest of sense.

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They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and of their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means of doing so.

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only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out.

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The musical sense in each of the children was of the quickest, but the elder in especial had a marvelous knack of catching and repeating.

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The quickest way to start Michael singing, he discovered, was with minors; and, once started, he would sing on and on for as long as the music played.

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All hands tail on!" Wolf Larsen shouted, springing himself to the rope in advance of the quickest.

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And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them?

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'By jumping from the top of the fall, if there be no other way,' unhesitatingly replied my companion: 'it will be much the quickest way of descent; but as you are not quite as active as I am, we will try some other way.'

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"I'm anxious to see what the Rigmaroles are like, and this path ought to take us there the quickest way."

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"Well, Bob," he addressed the animal, at the same time wiping the sweat from his own eyes, "I'm free to confess that you're sure the blamedest all-fired quickest creature I ever saw.

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But its definition, or significance, was there in the quickest part of his consciousness.

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"I don't know," she replied, "but we've been told we are nearer the Land of Oz than to Kansas, and if that's so, the quickest way for me to get home is to find Ozma."

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