quickly

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
quick/kwɪk/

▶adjective

• 1 moving fast or doing something in a short time.

  ■ lasting a short time.

  ■ prompt.

• 2 intelligent.

  ■ (of one's eye or ear) alert.

• 3 (of a person's temper) easily roused.

▶noun

• 1 (the quick) the tender flesh below the growing part of a fingernail or toenail.

  ■ the central or most sensitive part of someone or something.

• 2 (as pl. n. the quick) archaic those who are living.

– phrases
cut someone to the quick cause someone deep distress.
quick and dirty informal, chiefly US done or produced hastily.
a quick one informal a rapidly consumed alcoholic drink.
quick with child archaic at a stage of pregnancy when the fetus can be felt to move.

– derivatives
quickly adverb,
quickness noun.

– origin OE cwic, cwicu ‘alive, animated, alert’, of Gmc origin.