Picture a bead of silver-coloured metal that will not stay still. Touch it and it splits, rolls, and is somewhere else before your finger lands. Old English named it living silver for exactly that reason. Every other use of the word can be read as that bead, lent out: a mood, a mind, a smile or a scene that has moved before you can take hold of it.
quicksilver 可以想成一顆停不住的銀色小珠子。你一碰，它就散開、滾走，手指還沒按上去，它已經在別的地方了。古英文叫它「活的銀」，講的就是這個樣子。這個字後來的用法，都可以看成把這顆珠子借出去：心情、念頭、笑容、劇情的轉折，你還來不及抓，它就換位置了。
From the word’s history
From Old English cwicseolfor, literally living silver: quick here is the old word for living, not for fast. The name records how the metal behaves rather than what it is made of.
來自古英文 cwicseolfor，字面是「活的銀」。這裡的 quick 是古英文的「活著的」，不是「快」。也就是說，這個名字記錄的是這種金屬的動作，而不是它的成分。
Wiktionary, "quicksilver"
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