quicken

Quicken is a verb meaning to make alive, revive, or animate; to bring into life or motion. The term derives from Old English cwic, meaning alive, and from the verb cwician, with the sense of awakening or animating. In modern usage, quicken can also mean to hasten the progress of something, though this sense is more formal or archaic and appears mainly in literary or historical contexts. The phrase the quick and the dead reflects the older meaning of quick as alive.

Quicken is also the name of a personal finance software package produced by Intuit. First released in 1983, Quicken helps individuals manage money, track bank accounts, credit cards, expenses, and investments. It supports importing transactions from financial institutions, generating reports, creating budgets, and planning for taxes, retirement, and debt. Quicken is available as a desktop program for Windows and macOS, with companion mobile apps for iOS and Android, and has undergone numerous updates to support online banking and investment tracking.

The word appears in various contexts beyond software, including literary and religious usage, where it often retains the sense of activation or life. In contemporary English, the verb is most commonly encountered in formal, historical, or biblical-style language, while the brand Quicken remains widely recognized as a consumer finance tool.