different between quick vs busy

English

Alternative forms

• kwik (eye dialect)

Etymology

From Middle English quik, quic, from Old English cwic (“alive”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwik(k)w, from Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *g?ih?wós (“alive”), from *g?eyh?- (“to live”), *g?eyh?w- (“to live”).

Cognate with Dutch kwik, kwiek, German keck, Swedish kvick; and (from Indo-European) with Ancient Greek ???? (bíos, “life”), Latin vivus, Lithuanian gývas (“alive”), Latvian dz?vs (“alive”), Russian ?????? (živój), Welsh byw (“alive”), Irish beo (“alive”), biathaigh (“feed”), Northern Kurdish jîn (“to live”), jiyan (“life”), giyan (“soul”), can (“soul”), Sanskrit ??? (j?va, “living”), Albanian nxit (“to urge, stimulate”). Doublet of jiva.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kw?k/, [k?w??k]
• Rhymes: -?k

Adjective

quick (comparative quicker, superlative quickest)

1. Moving with speed, rapidity or swiftness, or capable of doing so; rapid; fast.

2. Occurring in a short time; happening or done rapidly.

3. Lively, fast-thinking, witty, intelligent.

4. Mentally agile, alert, perceptive.

5. Of temper: easily aroused to anger; quick-tempered.
   • 1549, Hugh Latimer, The Sixth Sermon Preached Before King Edward, April 6 1549

     The bishop was somewhat quick with them, and signified that he was much offended.

6. (archaic) Alive, living.
   • 1633, George Herbert, The Temple

     Man is no star, but a quick coal / Of mortal fire.

   • 1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night, X

     The inmost oratory of my soul,

     Wherein thou ever dwellest quick or dead,

     Is black with grief eternal for thy sake.

7. (now rare, archaic) Pregnant, especially at the stage where the foetus's movements can be felt; figuratively, alive with some emotion or feeling.
   • Section 316, Penal Code (Cap. 224, 2008 Ed.) (Singapore)

     Whoever does any act under such circumstances that if he thereby caused death he would be guilty of culpable homicide, and does by such act cause the death of a quick unborn child, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to fine.

   • 2012, Jerry White, London in the Eighteenth Century, Bodley Head 2017, p. 385:

     When sentenced she sought to avoid hanging by declaring herself with child – ironically, given her favourite deception – but a ‘jury of Matrons’ found her not quick.

8. Of water: flowing.
9. Burning, flammable, fiery.
10. Fresh; bracing; sharp; keen.
11. (mining, of a vein of ore) productive; not "dead" or barren

Synonyms

• (moving with speed): fast, speedy, rapid, swift; see also Thesaurus:speedy
• (occurring in a short time): brief, momentary, short-lived; see also Thesaurus:ephemeral
• (fast-thinking): bright, droll, keen; see also Thesaurus:witty or Thesaurus:intelligent
• (easily aroused to anger): hotheaded, rattish, short-tempered, snippish, snippy
• (alive, living): extant, live, vital; see also Thesaurus:alive
• (pregnant): expecting, gravid, with child; see also Thesaurus:pregnant
• (flowing): fluent, fluminous; see also Thesaurus:flowing

Antonyms

• (moving with speed): slow
• (alive): dead

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Adverb

quick (comparative quicker, superlative quickest)

1. Quickly, in a quick manner.

   • If we consider how very quick the actions of the mind are performed.

Derived terms

• right quick

Translations

Noun

quick (plural quicks)

1. Raw or sensitive flesh, especially that underneath finger and toe nails.
2. Plants used in making a quickset hedge
   • 1641, John Evelyn, diary entry September 1641

     The works […] are curiously hedged with quick.

3. The life; the mortal point; a vital part; a part susceptible to serious injury or keen feeling.
   • 1550, Hugh Latimer, Sermon Preached at Stamford, 9 October 1550

     This test nippeth, […] this toucheth the quick.

   • How feebly and unlike themselves they reason when they come to the quick of the difference!

4. Quitchgrass.
5. (cricket) A fast bowler.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

quick (third-person singular simple present quicks, present participle quicking, simple past and past participle quicked)

1. (transitive) To amalgamate surfaces prior to gilding or silvering by dipping them into a solution of mercury in nitric acid.
2. (transitive, archaic, poetic) To quicken.
   • 1917', Thomas Hardy, At the Word 'Farewell

     I rose as if quicked by a spur I was bound to obey.

References

• quick in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• quick in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• quick at OneLook Dictionary Search

French

Etymology

From English.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kwik/
• Rhymes: -ik

Noun

quick m (plural quicks)

1. quick waltz

See also

• slow

German

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle Low German quick, from Old Saxon quik, from Proto-West Germanic *kwik(k)w, from Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz; also a Central Franconian form. Doublet of keck, which see for more.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kv?k/, [k??k]

Adjective

quick (comparative quicker, superlative am quicksten)

1. (rather rare, dated) lively

Usage notes

• Much more common than the simplex is the pleonastic compound quicklebendig.

Declension

Derived terms

Related terms

Further reading

• “quick” in Duden online
• “quick” in Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm, 16 vols., Leipzig 1854–1961.

English

Etymology

From Middle English bisy, busie, from Old English bysi?, bisi? (“busy, occupied, diligent”), from Proto-West Germanic *bis?g (“diligent; zealous; busy”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian biesich (“active, diligent, hard-working, industrious”), Dutch bezig (“busy”), Low German besig (“busy”), Old Frisian bisgia (“to use”), Old English bisgian (“to occupy, employ, trouble, afflict”). The spelling with ?u? represents the pronunciation of the West Midland and Southern dialects while the Modern English pronunciation with /?/ is from the dialects of the East Midlands.

Pronunciation

• enPR: b?z'i, IPA^(key): /?b?zi/
• Rhymes: -?zi
• Hyphenation: bus?y

Adjective

busy (comparative busier, superlative busiest)

1. Crowded with business or activities; having a great deal going on.
   • 1843 — Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol.

     Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were.

     They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute.

2. Engaged in activity or by someone else.
   • 1719 — Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe.

     And the first thing I did was to lay by a certain quantity of provisions, being the stores for our voyage; and intended in a week or a fortnight’s time to open the dock, and launch out our boat. I was busy one morning upon something of this kind, when I called to Friday, and bid him to go to the sea-shore and see if he could find a turtle or a tortoise, a thing which we generally got once a week, for the sake of the eggs as well as the flesh.

     But to return to Friday; he was so busy about his father that I could not find in my heart to take him off for some time; but after I thought he could leave him a little, I called him to me, and he came jumping and laughing, and pleased to the highest extreme: then I asked him if he had given his father any bread.

   • 1813 — Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.

     After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home.

   • 1843 — Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol.

     His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.
3. Having a lot going on; complicated or intricate.

4. Officious; meddling.
   • 1603, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice, IV. ii. 130:

     I will be hanged if some eternal villain, / Some busy and insinuating rogue, / Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office, / Have not devised this slander; I'll be hanged else.

Synonyms

• swamped

Related terms

• busy as a beaver
• busy as a bee
• busybody
• busyness
• busy work

Translations

Verb

busy (third-person singular simple present busies, present participle busying, simple past and past participle busied)

1. (transitive) To make somebody busy or active; to occupy.
   • On my vacation I'll busy myself with gardening.
2. (transitive) To rush somebody. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Derived terms

• bebusy
• forebusy
• overbusy
• unbusy

Translations

Noun

busy (plural busies)

1. (slang, Britain, Liverpudlian, derogatory) A police officer.

References

Anagrams

• buys

Middle English

Adjective

busy

1. Alternative form of bisy