different between quick vs fleet

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fli?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /flit/
• Rhymes: -i?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English flete, flet (“fleet”), from Old English fl?ot (“ship”), likely related to Proto-Germanic *flut?n? (“to float”).

Noun

fleet (plural fleets)

1. A group of vessels or vehicles.
2. Any group of associated items.
   • 2004, Jim Hoskins, Building an on Demand Computing Environment with IBM:

     This is especially true in distributed printing environments, where a fleet of printers is shared by users on a network.

3. A large, coordinated group of people.
4. (nautical) A number of vessels in company, especially war vessels; also, the collective naval force of a country, etc.
5. (nautical, British Royal Navy) Any command of vessels exceeding a squadron in size, or a rear admiral's command, composed of five sail-of-the-line, with any number of smaller vessels.

Alternative forms

• fleete (obsolete)

Derived terms

• fleet in being
• merchant fleet

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English flete, flete (“bay, gulf”), from Old English fl?ot (“a bay, gulf, an arm of the sea, estuary, the mouth of a river”). Cognate with Dutch vliet (“stream, river, creek, inlet”), German Fleet (“watercourse, canal”).

Noun

fleet (plural fleets)

1. (obsolete, dialectal) An arm of the sea; a run of water, such as an inlet or a creek.
   • 1723, John Lewis, The History and Antiquities, Ecclesiastical and Civil, of the Isle of Tenet in Kent

     a certain Flete [...] through which little Boats used to come to the aforesaid Town

   • 1628, A. Matthewes (translator), Aminta (originally by Torquato Tasso)

     Together wove we nets to entrap the fish / In floods and sedgy fleets.

2. (nautical) A location, as on a navigable river, where barges are secured.

Derived terms

Etymology 3

From Middle English fleten (“float”), from Old English fl?otan (“float”), from Proto-Germanic *fleutan?.

Verb

fleet (third-person singular simple present fleets, present participle fleeting, simple past and past participle fleeted)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To float.
   • c. 1606-07, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act III scene xi^[2]:

     Antony: Our force by land / Hath nobly held; our sever'd navy too, / Have knit again, and fleet, threat'ning most sea-like.

2. (transitive) To pass over rapidly; to skim the surface of.

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

3. (transitive, intransitive) To hasten over; to cause to pass away lightly, or in mirth and joy.
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act I scene i^[3]:

     They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.

   • 1817-18, Percy Shelley, Rosalind and Helen, lines 626-627:

     And so through this dark world they fleet / Divided, till in death they meet.

4. (intransitive) To flee, to escape, to speed away.
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV scene i^[4]:

     Gratiano:

     O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!

     And for thy life let justice be accused.

     Thou almost makest me waver in my faith,

     To hold opinion with Pythagoras,

     That souls of animals infuse themselves

     Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit

     Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,

     Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,

     And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,

     Infused itself in thee; for thy desires

     Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.

5. (intransitive) To evanesce, disappear, die out.
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act III scene ii:

     Portia:

     How all other passions fleet to air,

     As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,

     And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy!

     O love, be moderate; allay thy ecstasy;

     In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess!

     I feel too much thy blessing; make it less,

     For fear I surfeit!

6. (nautical) To move up a rope, so as to haul to more advantage; especially to draw apart the blocks of a tackle.

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

7. (nautical, intransitive, of people) To move or change in position.
   • 1898, Frank T. Bullen, The Cruise of the "Cachalot"

     We got the long "stick" [...] down and "fleeted" aft, where it was secured.

8. (nautical, obsolete) To shift the position of dead-eyes when the shrouds are become too long.
9. To cause to slip down the barrel of a capstan or windlass, as a rope or chain.
10. To take the cream from; to skim.

Translations

Adjective

fleet (comparative fleeter or more fleet, superlative fleetest or most fleet)

1. (literary) Swift in motion; light and quick in going from place to place.

   Synonyms: nimble, fast

   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows:

     [...]it was not till the afternoon that they came out on the high-road, their first high-road; and there disaster, fleet and unforeseen, sprang out on them — disaster momentous indeed to their expedition[...]

2. (uncommon) Light; superficially thin; not penetrating deep, as soil.

Derived terms

• fleetfoot
• fleetfooted

Translations

Etymology 4

See flet.

Noun

fleet (plural fleets)

1. (Yorkshire) Obsolete form of flet (“house, floor, large room”).
   • 1686, "Lyke Wake Dirge" as printed in The Oxford Book of English Verse (1900) p. 361:

     Fire and fleet and candle-lighte

Anagrams

• felte, lefte

Middle English

Noun

fleet

1. Alternative form of flete (“bay”)