quicken(v.)
c. 1300, quikenen, "come to life, receive life," also transitive, "give life to," also "return to life from the dead;" see quick (adj.) + -en (1). The earlier verb was simply quick (c. 1200, from late Old English gecwician, and compare Old Norse kvikna).
The sense of "hasten, accelerate, impart speed to" is from 1620s. The intransitive meaning "become faster or more active" is by 1805. Also, of a woman, "enter that state of pregnancy in which the child gives indications of life;" of a child, "begin to manifest signs of life in the womb" (usually about the 18th week of pregnancy); probably originally in reference to the child but reversed and also used of the mother.
Related: Quickened; quickening.
5 entries found.
quicken(v.)
c. 1300, quikenen, "come to life, receive life," also transitive, "give life to," also "return to life from the dead;" see quick (adj.) + -en (1). The earlier verb was simply quick (c. 1200, from late Old English gecwician, and compare Old Norse kvikna).
The sense of "hasten, accelerate, impart speed to" is from 1620s. The intransitive meaning "become faster or more active" is by 1805. Also, of a woman, "enter that state of pregnancy in which the child gives indications of life;" of a child, "begin to manifest signs of life in the womb" (usually about the 18th week of pregnancy); probably originally in reference to the child but reversed and also used of the mother.
Related: Quickened; quickening.
vegetation (n.)
1560s, "act of vegetating," from French végétation and directly from Medieval Latin vegetationem (nominative vegetatio) "a quickening, action of growing," from past-participle stem of vegetare "grow, quicken" (see vegetable (adj.)). The meaning "plant life, plants collectively" is recorded by 1727.
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speeder(n.)
c. 1400, speder (early 13c. as a surname), "one who furthers or assists another," agent noun from speed (v.). As "one who advances rapidly or attains success," 1570s. Both the older senses are archaic or obsolete. By 1847 as "mechanical contrivance for quickening." As "one who drives fast or moves with great swiftness" by 1891.
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alive (adj.)
c. 1200, "in life, living," contraction of Old English on life "in living, not dead," from a- (1) + dative of lif "life" (see life). The full form on live was still current 17c. Of abstract things (love, lawsuits, etc.) "in a state of operation, unextinguished," c. 1600. From 1709 as "active, lively;" 1732 as "attentive, open" (usually with to). Used emphatically, especially with man (n.); as in:
[A]bout a thousand gentlemen having bought his almanacks for this year, merely to find what he said against me, at every line they read they would lift up their eyes, and cry out betwixt rage and laughter, "they were sure no man alive ever writ such damned stuff as this."
—Jonathan Swift, "Bickerstaff's Vindication," 1709]
Thus it was abstracted as an expletive, man alive! (1845). Alive and kicking "alert, vigorous," attested from 1823; Farmer says "The allusion is to a child in the womb after quickening," but kicking in the sense "lively and active" is recorded from 1550s (e.g. "the wanton or kicking flesh of yong maydes," "Lives of Women Saints," c. 1610).
abortion(n.)
1540s, "the expulsion of the fetus before it is viable," originally of deliberate as well as unintended miscarriages; from Latin abortionem (nominative abortio) "miscarriage; abortion, procuring of an untimely birth," noun of action from past-participle stem of aboriri "to miscarry, be aborted, fail, disappear, pass away," a compound word used in Latin for deaths, miscarriages, sunsets, etc., which according to OED is from ab, here as "amiss" (see ab-), + stem of oriri "appear, be born, arise" (see origin).
Meaning "product of an untimely birth" is from 1630s; earlier in this sense was abortive (early 14c.). Another earlier noun in English for "miscarriage" was abort (early 15c.). In the Middle English translation of Guy de Chauliac's "Grande Chirurgie" (early 15c.) Latin aborsum is used for "stillbirth, forced abortion." Abortment is attested from c. 1600; aborsement from 1530s, both archaic. Aborticide (1875) is illogical. Compare miscarriage.
In 19c. some effort was made to distinguish abortion "expulsion of the fetus between 6 weeks and 6 months" from miscarriage (the same within 6 weeks of conception) and premature labor (delivery after 6 months but before due time). The deliberate miscarriage was criminal abortion. This broke down late 19c. as abortion came to be used principally for intentional miscarriages, probably via phrases such as procure an abortion.
Criminal abortion is premeditated or intentional abortion procured, at any of pregnancy, by artificial means, and solely for the purpose of preventing the birth of a living child : feticide. At common law the criminality depended on the abortion being caused after quickening. [Century Dictionary, 1899]
Foeticide (n.) appears 1823 as a forensic medical term for deliberate premature fatal expulsion of the fetus; also compare prolicide. Another 19c. medical term for it was embryoctony, with second element from a Latinized form of Greek kteinein "to destroy." Abortion was a taboo word for much of early 20c., disguised in print as criminal operation (U.S.) or illegal operation (U.K.), and replaced by miscarriage in film versions of novels. Abortium "hospital specializing in abortions," is from 1934, in a Soviet Union context.
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