Quick

How to spell quick

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce quick

What does quick mean?

1. adjectiveMoving, happening, or done with speed; taking only a short time.
2. adverbIn a fast manner; rapidly (informal use).
3. nounThe tender, sensitive flesh beneath a fingernail or toenail.

Quick in a sentence

• adjective

  She sent a quick reply before her meeting started.

• adverb

  The manager told the crew to come quick before the doors closed.

• noun

  She trimmed the nail carefully so as not to cut into the quick.

• adjective

  The recipe promises a quick supper after a long day at work.

• adverb

  If you run quick you can still catch the early train.

• noun

  Biting his nails left the quick raw and sore.

Where does quick come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Quick comes from the Old English word cwic, which originally meant 'alive' or 'living' rather than 'fast'. This sense survives in old expressions such as 'the quick and the dead', meaning the living and the deceased, and in 'cut to the quick', which refers to the sensitive living flesh beneath a fingernail. The word traces back to a Germanic root shared with the Dutch kwik and the German keck, and ultimately to an Indo-European root meaning 'to be lively'. Over the medieval period the idea of being lively and full of life shifted naturally toward the modern meaning of moving or happening with speed. The same ancestry lies behind 'quicksilver', the old name for mercury, so called because the metal seems alive as it darts about, and behind 'quicken', meaning to come to life or to speed up.

How the word is built

• quick (from Old English cwic: alive, living); no affixes, a single native root