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Characterized by life or liveliness; animated; sprightly; agile; brisk; ready. " A quick wit." Shak.

To come to life; to become alive; to become vivified or enlivened; hence, to exhibit signs of life; to move, as the fetus in the womb. The heart is the first part that quickens, and the last that dies. Ray. And keener lightnings quicken in her eye. Pope. When the pale and bloodless east began To quicken to the sun. Ten…

. It has been popularly supposed to be due to the fetus becoming possessed of independent life.

The condition or quality of being quick or living; life. [Obs.] Touch it with thy celestial quickness. Herbert.

d very dangerous, from the difficulty of extricating a person who begins sinking into it. Life hath quicksands, -- Life hath snares! Longfellow.

Not excited or anxious; calm; peaceful; placid; settled; as, a quiet life; a quiet conscience. " So quiet and so sweet a style." Shak. That son, who on the quiet state of man Such trouble brought. Milton.

Competitive action of any kind, especially when prolonged; hence, career; course of life. My race of glory run, and race of shame. Milton.

we at present make use of, and understand only by common agreement, assume a new air and life in the understanding, when you trace them to their radicals, where you find every word strongly stamped with nature; full of energy, meaning, character, painting, and poetry. Cleland.

r world; to call up, as a spirit from the world of spirits; to recall from death; to give life to. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead Acts xxvi. 8.

The act of lifting, setting up, elevating, exalting, producing, or restoring to life.

To act the rake; to lead a dissolute, debauched life. Shenstone. To rake out (Falconry), to fly too far and wide from its master while hovering above waiting till the game is sprung; -- said of the hawk. Encyc. Brit.

A lewd, dissolute fellow; a debauchee; a rake. It seldom doth happen, in any way of life, that a sluggard and a rakehell do not go together. Barrow.

pleasantry, or with slight contempt or satire. Honeycomb . . . raillies me upon a country life. Addison. Strephon had long confessed his amorous pain. Which gay Corinna rallied with disdain. Gay.

Degree of dignity, eminence, or excellence; position in civil or social life; station; degree; grade; as, a writer of the first rank; a lawyer of high rank. These all are virtues of a meaner rank. Addison.

More readily or willingly; preferably. My soul chooseth . . . death rather than my life. Job vii. 15.

Actually being or existing; not fictitious or imaginary; as, a description of real life. Whereat I waked, and found Before mine eyes all real, as the dream Had lively shadowed. Milton.

Fidelity to nature or to real life; representation without idealization, and making no appeal to the imagination; adherence to the actual fact.

To animate anew; to restore to animation or life; to infuse new life, vigor, spirit, or courage into; to revive; to reinvigorate; as, to reanimate a drowned person; to reanimate disheartened troops; to reanimate languid spirits. Glanvill.

e or by stealth; to snatch away; to rob; to despoil; to bereave. [Archaic]. "To reave his life." Spenser. He golden apples raft of the dragon. Chaucer. By privy stratagem my life at home. Chapman. To reave the orphan of his patrimony. Shak. The heaven caught and reft him of his tongue. Tennyson.

to care; to mind; -- often followed by of. [Archaic] Then reck I not, when I have lost my life. Chaucer. I reck not though I end my life to-day. Shak. Of me she recks not, nor my vain desire. M. Arnold.