> as lemmas

OE Metrical Charm: For Delayed Birth (Harl. 585) 10 Up ic gonge, ofer þe stæppe mid cwican cilde, nalæs mid cwellendum, mid fulborenum, nalæs mid fægan.

c1330 Sir Degare (Auch.) 164 in W. H. French & C. B. Hale Middle Eng. Metrical Romances (1930) 293 (MED) Lo, now ich am wiȝ quike schilde.

a1500 (?c1450) Merlin 12 She was grete with quyk childe [Fr. uif enfant].

1662 Culpeper's Directory for Midwives: 2nd Pt. iv. ix. 149 If it [sc. a hydatidiform mole] be with a quick child, it is hard to be known, but it is known by its weight in the womb, which she perceives when she gets up to walk or moves from side to side.

1752 J. Louthian Form of Process (ed. 2) 217 You of the Jury of Matrons..say, that E. L. is not pregnant with quick Child.

1847 Lancet 2 Oct. 368/1 They were summoned to that court as a jury of matrons, to perform a very solemn duty, which was, to ascertain whether the prisoner then standing at the bar was big with a quick child or not.

1931 Lancet 31 Jan. 266/2 The law has distinguished between the woman who has conceived and is ‘barely with child’ and that of the woman who has conceived ‘with quick child’, as though the old idea were true that the fœtus is not alive until the woman ‘quickens’.

2003 West's Southern Reporter 853 106/1 We hold that the wrongful death statute..includes an unborn child that is ‘quick’ in the womb as a ‘person’.