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To breathe quick and hard, or with puffs, as after violent exertion. The ass comes back again, puffing and blowing, from the chase. L' Estrange.

Any measured or regular beat; any short, quick motion, regularly repeated, as of a medium in the transmission of light, sound, etc.; oscillation; vibration; pulsation; impulse; beat; movement. The measured pulse of racing oars. Tennyson. When the ear receives any simple sound, it is struck by a single pulse of the air,…

An ancient Greek martial dance, to the accompaniment of the flute, its time being very quick.

unciation, § 249. Q is not found in Anglo-Saxon, cw being used instead of qu; as in cwic, quick; cwen, queen. The name (ku) is from the French ku, which is from the Latin name of the same letter; its form is from the Latin, which derived it, through a Greek alphabet, from the Phoenician, the ultimate origin being Egypt…

To be agitated with quick, short motions continually repeated; to shake with fear, cold, etc.; to shudder; to tremble. Quaking for dread." Chaucer. She stood quaking like the partridge on which the hawk is ready to seize. Sir P. Sidney.

To stir; to move. See Quick, v. i. [Obs.]

s rapidly and pertinaciously, and so becomes a troublesome weed. Also called couch grass, quick grass, quick grass, twitch grass. See Illustration in Appendix.

To scrape or scratch across; to pass over quickly and lightly, as a rake does. Like clouds that rake the mountain summits. Wordsworth.

To strike with a quick, sharp blow; to knock; as, to rap on the door.

Very swift or quick; moving with celerity; fast; as, a rapid stream; a rapid flight; a rapid motion. Ascend my chariot; guide the rapid wheels. Milton.

A mount permitting easy and quick elevation or depression and training of the gun, and fitting with a device for taking up the recoil.

ing (abbr. B. L.), applied to all guns loading with the charge in bags, and formerly from quick-fire. Rapid-fire guns in the navy also sometimes include automatic or semiautomatic rapid-fire guns; the former being automatic guns of not less than one inch caliber, firing a shell of not less than one pound weight, the ex…

Sudden in action; quick; hasty. [Obs.] "Strong as aconitum or rash gunpowder." Shak.

To make a quick succession of sharp, inharmonious noises, as by the collision of hard and not very sonorous bodies shaken together; to clatter. And the rude hail in rattling tempest forms. Addison. 'T was but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. Byron.

way by violence; to snatch by force. These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin Will quicken, and accuse thee. Shak. This hand shall ravish thy pretended right. Dryden.

In a ready manner; quickly; promptly. Chaucer.

Not slow or hesitating; quick in action or perception of any kind; dexterous; prompt; easy; expert; as, a ready apprehension; ready wit; a ready writer or workman. "Ready in devising expedients." Macaulay. Gurth, whose temper was ready, through surly. Sir W. Scott.

Repercussion, or beating back; a quick and sudden resistance. The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud. Milton.

; to restore. The rest refresh the scaly snakes that folDryden. To refresh the memory, to quicken or strengthen it, as by a reference, review, memorandum, or suggestion.

See under Decimal. -- Repeating firearm, a firearm that may be discharged many times in quick succession; especially: (a) A form of firearm so constructed that by the action of the mechanism the charges are successively introduced from a chamber containing them into the breech of the barrel, and fired. (b) A form in…