Quickened

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Became faster in speed or pace ; began to have life, motion, or activity ; caused something to increase in speed or intensity
2. Started moving more quickly or gained speed ; took on signs of life or animation ; accelerated or intensified a process or action
3. Increased in rapidity or hastened ; commenced experiencing vitality or movement ; stimulated or enhanced the speed or strength of something

Etymology: The surprising thread here is that "quicken" once meant simply "to come to life." Its Old English ancestor, "cwician," meant to bring to life or to become living, and it grew from "cwic," meaning alive. So the modern sense of speeding up is a secondary development: a quickening was originally a coming-alive, and the notion of swiftness came later, from the same root that gave us "quick" in the sense of lively or alert. The verb's history gets even more varied. Middle English "quiken" covered a remarkable range of senses, including reviving the dead, raising someone from death, igniting a fire, sparing a life, and even, in one sense, a cloud forming. Its sense of making things happen faster appears among these alongside the older meanings of vitality and revival. "Quicken" is built from "quick" plus the suffix "-en," which forms verbs meaning "to make" something the adjective describes. Related forms appear in Danish, Icelandic and Swedish, where "kvikne," "kvikna" and "kvickna" carry the senses of reviving or igniting, echoing the older life-giving sense of the English word.

Synonyms: accelerated, hastened, stimulated, revived

Antonyms: slowed, delayed, impeded