quicksilver
/ˈkwɪkˌsɪlvɚ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.86 in modern English
29
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
3
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Summer is not the most auspicious season for theater in New York. Aside from a few certifiable Broadway hits, it is, in fact, a rather quicksilver commodity."
- "The idea of a merchant selling both totems of pure evil and frozen yogurt (he calls it frogurt!) is amusing in itself, as is the idea that frogurt could be cursed, but it’s really the Shopkeeper’s quicksilver shift from ominous doomsaying to chipper salesmanship that sells the sequence."
Etymology
From Middle English quyk silver, quyksilver, quikselver, from Old English cwicseolfor (“quicksilver”, literally “living silver”) (see Latin argentum vīvum) from its ability to move. See quick in the sense of "living". Cognate with Dutch kwikzilver, German Low German Quicksülver, German Quecksilber, Danish kviksølv, Norwegian Bokmål kvikksølv, Swedish kvicksilver. By surface analysis, quick (“living”) + silver.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈkwɪkˌsɪlvɚ/