different between quicken vs speed

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?kw?k?n/
• Rhymes: -?k?n

Etymology 1

From Middle English quikenen, equivalent to quick +? -en. Cognate Danish kvikne (“to quicken, revive”), Swedish kvickna (“to revive”), Icelandic kvikna (“to turn on, ignite”).

Verb

quicken (third-person singular simple present quickens, present participle quickening, simple past and past participle quickened)

1. (transitive, literary) To give life to; to animate, make alive, revive. [from 14thc.]
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Luke XVII:

     Whosoever will goo about to save his lyfe, shall loose it: And whosoever shall loose his life, shall quycken it.

   • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 3 scene 1

     The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead, / And makes my labours pleasures

   • Like a fruitful garden without an hedge, that quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting a prize.

2. (intransitive, literary) To come back to life, receive life. [from 14th c.]
3. (intransitive) To take on a state of activity or vigour comparable to life; to be roused, excited. [from 15th c.]
4. (intransitive) Of a pregnant woman: to first feel the movements of the foetus, or reach the stage of pregnancy at which this takes place; of a foetus: to begin to move. [from 16th c.]
   • 2013, Hilary Mantel, ‘Royal Bodies’, London Review of Books, 35.IV:

     Royal pregnancies were not announced in those days; the news generally crept out, and public anticipation was aroused only when the child quickened.

5. (transitive) To make quicker; to hasten, speed up. [from 17thc.]
   • 2000, George RR Martin, A Storm of Swords, Bantam 2011, p.47:

     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.

6. (intransitive) To become faster. [from 17thc.]

   • 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.
7. (shipbuilding) To shorten the radius of (a curve); to make (a curve) sharper.

Translations

Etymology 2

Apparently from quick, with uncertain final element.

Noun

quicken (plural quickens)

1. (now chiefly Northern England) The European rowan, Sorbus aucuparia. [from 15th c.]
   • 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not…, Penguin 2012 (Parade's End), p, 104:

     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 […].

Synonyms

• quickbeam

See also

• quickens

German

Pronunciation

Adjective

quicken

1. inflection of quick:
   1. strong genitive masculine/neuter singular
   2. weak/mixed genitive/dative all-gender singular
   3. strong/weak/mixed accusative masculine singular
   4. strong dative plural
   5. weak/mixed all-case plural

Old Dutch

Etymology

From quic +? -en.

Verb

quicken

1. to come to life

Inflection

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Middle Dutch: quicken

Further reading

• “kwikken”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spi?d/
• Rhymes: -i?d

Etymology 1

From Middle English spede (“prosperity, good luck, quickness, success”), from Old English sp?d (“luck, prosperity, success”), from Proto-West Germanic *sp?di (“prosperity, success”), from Proto-West Germanic *sp?an, Proto-Germanic *sp?an? (“to prosper, succeed, be happy”), from Proto-Indo-European *speh?- (“to prosper, turn out well”). Cognate with Scots spede, speid (“success, quickness, speed”), Dutch spoed (“haste; speed”), German Low German Spood (“haste; speed; eagerness; success”), German Sput (“progress, acceleration, haste”). Related also to Old English sp?wan (“to be successful, succeed”), Albanian shpejt (“to speed, to hurry”) and Russian ???????? (spešít?, “to hurry”), Latin sp?s (“hope, expectation”), sp?r? (“hope”, verb), perhaps also to Ancient Greek ?????? (speúd?, “to urge on, hasten, press on”).

Noun

speed (countable and uncountable, plural speeds)

1. The state of moving quickly or the capacity for rapid motion.

   Synonyms: celerity, rapidity, velocity

2. (mathematics, physics) The rate of motion or action, specifically the magnitude of the velocity; the rate distance is traversed in a given time.

   Hyponyms: lightspeed, speed of light, speed of sound

3. (photography) The sensitivity to light of film, plates or sensor.
4. (photography) The duration of exposure, the time during which a camera shutter is open (shutter speed).
5. (photography) The largest size of the lens opening at which a lens can be used.
6. (photography) The ratio of the focal length to the diameter of a photographic objective.
7. (slang, uncountable) Amphetamine or any amphetamine-based drug (especially methamphetamine) used as a stimulant, especially illegally.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:methamphetamine

8. (archaic) Luck, success, prosperity.
9. (slang) Personal preference.

10. (finance, uncountable) A third-order measure of derivative price sensitivity, expressed as the rate of change of gamma with respect to changes in the underlying asset price.

    Synonyms: DgammaDspot, gamma of the gamma

    Hypernym: Greeks

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

Units for measuring speed: metres/meters per second, m/s, kilometres/kilometers per hour, km/h (metric); knot, kt, kn (nautical); feet per second, ft/s, ft/sec and fps, miles per hour, mph (imperial and U.S. customary); mach (aeronautical)

Etymology 2

From Middle English speden, from Old English sp?dan (“to speed, prosper, succeed, have success”), from Proto-West Germanic *sp?dijan (“to succeed”). Cognate with Scots spede, speid (“to meet with success, assist, promote, accomplish, speed”), Dutch spoeden (“to hurry, rush”), Low German spoden, spöden (“to hasten, speed”), German sputen, spuden (“to speed”).

Verb

speed (third-person singular simple present speeds, present participle speeding, simple past and past participle sped or (mostly UK) speeded)

1. (intransitive, archaic) To succeed; to prosper, be lucky.
   • 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene i^[1]:

     We have been praying for our husbands' healths,

     Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.

     Are they returned?

   • 18^thc., Oliver Goldsmith, Introductory to Switzerland

     At night returning, every labor sped, / He sits him down the monarch of a shed: / Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys, / His children’s looks, that brighten at the blaze;

2. (transitive, archaic) To help someone, to give them fortune; to aid or favour.
   • with rising gales that sped their happy flight

3. (intransitive) To go fast.
4. (intransitive) To exceed the speed limit.

5. (transitive) To increase the rate at which something occurs.
   • 1982, Carole Offir & Carole Wade, Human sexuality, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, p.454:

     It is possible that the uterine contractions speed the sperm along.

   • 2004, James M. Cypher & James L. Dietz, The process of economic development, Routledge, p.359:

     Such interventions can help to speed the process of reducing CBRs and help countries pass through the demographic transition threshold more quickly […].

6. (intransitive, slang) To be under the influence of stimulant drugs, especially amphetamines.
   • 2008, Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap, Allen and Unwin, p.46:

     If Hector had not been speeding, it was possible that his next thought would have hurt: he loves his uncle unconditionally, in a way he will never love me.

7. (obsolete) To be expedient.
8. (archaic) To hurry to destruction; to put an end to; to ruin.
9. (archaic) To wish success or good fortune to, in any undertaking, especially in setting out upon a journey.
10. To cause to make haste; to dispatch with celerity; to drive at full speed; hence, to hasten; to hurry.

    • He sped him thence, home to his habitation.

11. To hasten to a conclusion; to expedite.
    • 1726, John Ayliffe, Parergon juris canonici Anglicani

      Judicial acts […] are sped in open court at the instance of one or both of the parties.

Usage notes

• The Cambridge Guide to English Usage indicates that sped is for objects in motion (the race car sped) while speeded is used for activities or processes, but notes that the British English convention does not hold in American English.
• Garner's Modern American Usage (2009) indicates that speeded is incorrect, except in the phrasal verb, speed up. Most American usage of speeded conforms to this.
• Sped is about six times more common in American English (COCA) than speeded. Sped is twice as common in UK English (BNC).

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:speed.

Derived terms

• speed up
• Godspeed

Translations

Anagrams

• Peeds, deeps, pedes, spede

French

Noun

speed m (plural speeds)

1. speed (amphetamine)