Devastate vs Quicken - What's the difference?
devastate | quicken | Related terms |
To ruin many or all things over a large area, such as most or all buildings of a city, or cities of a region, or trees of a forest.
To destroy a whole collection of related ideas, beliefs, and strongly held opinions.
To break beyond recovery or repair so that the only options are abandonment or the clearing away of useless remains (if any) and starting over.
*1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. (Bible) , (w) XVII:
*:Whosoever will goo about to save his lyfe, shall loose it: And whosoever shall loose his life, shall
*1610 , , act 3
*:The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead, / And makes my labours pleasures
*(Robert South) (1634–1716)
*:Like a fruitful garden without an hedge, that quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting a prize.
(lb) To take on a state of activity or vigour comparable to life; to be roused, excited.
*1910 , ‘(Saki)’, "The Lost Sanjak", Reginald in Russia :
*:The Chaplain's interest in the story visibly quickened .
(lb) Of a pregnant woman: to first feel the movements of the foetus, or reach the stage of pregnancy at which this takes place; of a foetus: to begin to move.
*2013 , (Hilary Mantel), ‘Royal Bodies’, (London Review of Books) , 35.IV:
*:Royal pregnancies were not announced in those days; the news generally crept out, and public anticipation was aroused only when the child quickened .
(lb) To make quicker; to hasten, speed up.
*2000 , (George RR Martin), A Storm of Swords , Bantam 2011, p.47:
*:That day Arya quickened their pace, keeping the horses to a trot as long as she dared, and sometimes spurring to a gallop when she spied a flat stretch of field before them.
(lb) To become faster.
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*:Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.
(lb) To shorten the radius of (a curve); to make (a curve) sharper.
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*1924 , (Ford Madox Ford), Some Do Not…'', Penguin 2012 (''Parade's End ), p, 104:
*:Miss Wannop moved off down the path: it was only suited for Indian file, and had on the left hand a ten-foot, untrimmed quicken hedge, the hawthorn blossoms just beginning to blacken […].