different between provoke vs quicken

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French provoquer, from Old French, from Latin pr?voc?re. Doublet of provocate.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /p???v??k/
• (US) IPA^(key): /p???vo?k/
• Rhymes: -??k

Verb

provoke (third-person singular simple present provokes, present participle provoking, simple past and past participle provoked)

1. (transitive) To cause someone to become annoyed or angry.
   • Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

2. (transitive) To bring about a reaction.
   • 1881, John Burroughs, Pepacton

     To the poet the meaning is what he pleases to make it, what it provokes in his own soul.
3. (obsolete) To appeal.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

Synonyms

• (bring about a reaction): bring about, discompose, egg on, engender, evoke, grill, incite, induce, inflame, instigate, invoke, rouse, set off, stir up, whip up; see also Thesaurus:incite

Derived terms

• provocation
• provocative

Related terms

• evoke
• invoke
• provocateur
• revoke

Translations

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