The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead, / And makes my labours pleasures
(w) (1634–1716)
Like a fruitful garden without an hedge, that quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting a prize.
puhekieltä To come back to life, receive life. (defdate)
puhekieltä To take on a state of activity or vigour comparable to life; to be roused, excited. (defdate)
1910, ‘(w)’, "The Lost Sanjak", Reginald in Russia:
The Chaplain's interest in the story visibly quickened.
puhekieltä 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. (defdate)
2013, (w), ‘Royal Bodies’, (w), 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.
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.
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.
puhekieltä To shorten the radius of (a curve); to make (a curve) sharper.
1924, (w), Some Do Not…, Penguin 2012 (Parades 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 ….