Hacker News Reader

Comment by riffraff | Hacker News Reader

I never realized that "quick" means "alive" in quicklime, quicksilver.

It's interesting because I now see the same pattern is used in old italian (mercury is "mercurio" but also "argento vivo", living silver, and calcium oxide is "ossido di calcio" but also "calce viva", living lime).

As far as I understand, in hungarian ("fürge ezüst" -> "lively silver") and german ("quecksilber" -> quicksilver) the same pattern exists for mercury, though I didn't find the calcium carbonate equivalent.

I imagine there is some shared (alchemic?) tradition there, and I wonder what other "alive" things exist.

View on HN

Also "cut to the quick" = "cut to the level of living tissue": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/to_the_quick#English

I didn't know other languages did this! In English "quicksand" seems to follow the same pattern.

Seems common in old English as well, have seen bible references, though I can’t remember them now, and phrases like “the quick and the dead”.

> [...] german ("quecksilber" -> quicksilver) [...]

In German, there's also quicklebendig – meaning "lively", "very active" – compared to lebendig, which means "alive", "living". It's slowly becoming outdated, though.

The Online Etymological Dictionary (DDG bang !etym) is great for this sort of inquiry:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/quick

Similarly: quicklime, quicksilver, and quicksand.

ah! "quicksand" makes much more sense to me now, in italian they are just called "mobile sands" which seemed much more reasonable :)

OED has given me many "ahhh!" moments.

Vodka being "little water" being a fave.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/vodka

Most obvious in English when you're talking about "the quick and the dead".

It may be obvious to those of us with an interest in etymology, but when the phrase came up in my tabletop gaming group (ages 18-50), they were unanimous (save for myself) that the meaning was "the fast and the dead". I had to resort to a web search to convince them otherwise.

Probably due to things like the movie "The Quick and the Dead" about fast vs slow gunfighters.

But that's a pun! It's literally the whole point!

Could possibly also be a play on words...

In Lithuanian mercury is "gyvsidabris" which is just portmanteau of "gyvasis sidabras"—literally "the living silver".

Quicklime is different—"negesintos kalkes" which means "unextinguished lime".

Also quicken - current use is "to make faster" but older form is "to come alive"

Quickening is also the point in pregnancy when the women can first feel the infant's movements.

oh, the "quickening" in the highlander movies makes some more sense now too, thanks.

"Argento vivo" is identical and also obsolete in Spanish. "Cal viva" is very much alive though.

In my hometown we also have "aguaviva" (living water) for jellyfish.

In Dutch "kwiek" means "lively".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com