different between quire vs quarter

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?kwa?.?(?)/
• Rhymes: -a??(?)
• Homophone: choir

Etymology 1

From Middle English quayer, from Anglo-Norman quaier and Old French quaer, from Vulgar Latin *quaternus, from Latin quaterni (“four at a time”), from quater (“four times”). Doublet of cahier.

Noun

quire (plural quires)

1. One-twentieth of a ream of paper; a collection of twenty-four or twenty-five sheets of paper of the same size and quality, unfolded or having a single fold.
   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 4, p. 592:

     Under the year 1533 we are told that the ream contained twenty quires.

   • 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 71:

     […] and we must accept the fact that all those good novels, Villette, Emma, Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch, were written by women without more experience of life than could enter the house of a clergyman; written too in the common sitting-room of that respectable house and by women so poor that they could not afford to buy more than a few quires of paper at a time upon which to write Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre.
2. (bookbinding) A set of leaves which are stitched together, originally a set of four pieces of paper (eight leaves, sixteen pages). This is most often a single signature (i.e. group of four), but may be several nested signatures.
3. A book, poem, or pamphlet.

Coordinate terms

• (quantity of paper): bale, bundle, ream

Translations

Verb

quire (third-person singular simple present quires, present participle quiring, simple past and past participle quired)

1. (bookbinding) To prepare quires by stitching together leaves of paper.
   • 1870, William White, Notes and Queries, vol. 42:

     Now, in the first folio volume of 1616, the paging, signatures, and quiring are continuous and regular throughout.

   • 1938, The Dolphin: A Journal of the Making of the Books, issue 3:

     This is a natural point at which to ask why quiring went out of fashion.

   • 1976, Alfred William Pollard, Alfred William Pollard: A Selection of his Essays:

     By means of these smooth pages we can mostly see how the modern binder made up the book, but whether in doing this he followed the original quiring is quite another matter.

See also

• Units of paper quantity on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 2

See choir.

Alternative forms

• choir

Noun

quire (plural quires)

1. (archaic) A choir.
   • c.1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 2, I.iii:

     Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her,

     And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds,

     That she will light to listen to the lays,

     And never mount to trouble you again.

   • 1597-1598, Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarum

     Yea, and the prophet of the heav'nly lyre, / Great Solomon sings in the English quire […]

2. One quarter of a cruciform church, or the architectural area of a church used by the choir, often near the apse.

Verb

quire (third-person singular simple present quires, present participle quiring, simple past and past participle quired)

1. (intransitive) To sing in concert.
   • c.1598, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, V.i:

     Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven / Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: / There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st / But in his motion like an angel sings, / Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; / Such harmony is in immortal souls; / But whilst this muddy vesture of decay / Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

   • 1920, T. S. Eliot, Poems, "Hippopotamus"

     I saw the 'potamus take wing / Ascending from the damp savannas, / And quiring angels round him sing / The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

   • 1938, William Faulkner, "Barn Burning"

     He went on down the hill, toward the dark woods within which the liquid silver voices of the birds called unceasing-the rapid and urgent beating of the urgent and quiring heart of the late spring night.

Latin

Verb

qu?re

1. present active infinitive of que?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k(w)??t?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k(w)??.t?/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /?ko?.t?/
• Rhymes: -??(?)t?(?)

Etymology 1

From Middle English quarter, from Anglo-Norman quarter, from Latin quartarius, from quartus. Compare Spanish cuarto (“room, quarters; quarter”). Doublet of quartier.

Noun

quarter (countable and uncountable, plural quarters)

1. A fourth part of something.
   1. (in general sense) Each of four equal parts into which something can be divided; a fourth part. [from 14th c.]

      A quarter of an hour.

   2. (now chiefly historical) A measure of capacity used chiefly for grain or coal, varying greatly in quantity by time and location. [from 13th c.]
   3. A fourth part of a pound; approximately 113 grams. [from 14th c.]
   4. (historical) A measure of length; originally a fourth part of an ell, now chiefly a fourth part of a yard. [from 14th c.]
   5. (now historical) A fourth part of the night; one of the watches or divisions of the night. [from 14th c.]
      • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Mark 6:48

        And aboute the fourth quartre of the nyght, he cam unto them, walkinge apon the see [...].

   6. (now chiefly financial) A fourth part of the year; 3 months; a term or season. [from 14th c.]
   7. A fourth part of an hour; a period of fifteen minutes, especially with reference to the quarter before or after the hour. [from 15th c.]
   8. (now chiefly historical) A fourth part of a hundredweight. [from 15th c.]
   9. (heraldry) A fourth part of a coat of arms, or the charge on it, larger than a canton and normally on the upper dexter side, formed by a perpendicular line from the top meeting a horizontal line from the side. [from 15th c.]
   10. (Canada, US) A quarter-dollar, divided into 25 cents; the coin of that value minted in the United States or Canada. [from 18th c.]
   11. (sports) One of four equal periods into which a game is divided. [from 19th c.]
   12. (Chester, historical) A quarter of an acre or 40 roods.
2. Place or position.
   1. A region or place. [from 13th c.]
      • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost:

        I am to haste, / And all who under me thir Banners wave, / Homeward with flying march where we possess / The Quarters of the North […] .

   2. Each of four parts into which the earth or sky is divided, corresponding to the four cardinal points of the compass. [from 14th c.]
   3. A division or section of a town or city, especially having a particular character of its own, or associated with a particular group etc. [from 16th c.]
   4. One's residence or dwelling-place; (in plural) rooms, lodgings, especially as allocated to soldiers or domestic staff. [from 16th c.]
   5. (obsolete) Relations between people. [17th c.]
      • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Cunning

        I knew two that were competitors for the secretary's place, […] and yet kept good quarter between themselves.

   6. Accommodation given to a defeated opponent; mercy; exemption from being killed. [from 17th c.]
3. Technical or specialized senses.
   1. (farriery) The part on either side of a horse's hoof between the toe and heel, the side of its coffin. [from 16th c.]
   2. (nautical) The aftmost part of a vessel's side, roughly from the last mast to the stern. [from 16th c.]
      • 1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 80:

        I was one morning walking the deck, when Rogers, whose watch it was, sitting upon the quarter, called to me in his usual style, ‘Come here, Bill.’
4. Short forms.
   1. (now rare, rugby, American football) A quarterback. [from 19th c.]
   2. (military slang, now rare) A quartermaster; a quartermaster sergeant. [from 20th c.]
   3. A quarterfinal. [from 20th c.]

Synonyms

• (one of four equal parts): fourth, fourth part, ¼
• (period of three consecutive months): trimester, cour
• (section of a town): district; ward; neighborhood; ghetto (pejorative); borough (New York City); capitoulate (Toulouse, historical)

Derived terms

Related terms

• quart

Translations

References

Adjective

quarter (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to an aspect of a quarter.
2. (chiefly) Consisting of a fourth part, a quarter (¹?₄, 25%).

3. (chiefly) Related to a three-month term, a quarter of a year.

Antonyms

• quadruple

Usage notes

Often used in a combining form quarter-.

Derived terms

Verb

quarter (third-person singular simple present quarters, present participle quartering, simple past and past participle quartered)

1. (transitive) To divide into quarters; to divide by four.
2. (transitive) To provide housing for military personnel or other equipment.

3. (intransitive) To lodge; to have a temporary residence.
4. (transitive) To quartersaw.

Synonyms

• (to have a temporary residence): stay over, stop; See also Thesaurus:sojourn

Antonyms

• quadruple (multiply by four)

Translations

See also

• draw and quarter

References

Adjective

• "quarter" at Merriam-Webster
• "quarter" in Harrap's Shorter, 2006, p. 761

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French cartayer.

Verb

quarter (third-person singular simple present quarters, present participle quartering, simple past and past participle quartered)

1. (obsolete) To drive a carriage so as to prevent the wheels from going into the ruts, or so that a rut shall be between the wheels.

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin quartus.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /kw???te/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /kw?r?te/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /kwa??te?/

Noun

quarter m (plural quarters)

1. fourth
2. quarter

Synonyms

• quart

Derived terms

• esquarterar

Further reading

• “quarter” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “quarter” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “quarter” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “quarter” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

French

Etymology

From English.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kwa?.t??/

Noun

quarter m (plural quarters)

1. quarter (old measure of corn)

Further reading

• “quarter” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• traquer

Middle English

Alternative forms

• quartre, quartier, wharter, quatere, quatter

Etymology

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman quarter.

Noun

quarter (plural quarters)

1. quarter

Descendants

• English: quarter
• Yola: curthere, cortere

References

• “quart???r(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Old French

Alternative forms

• quartier (chiefly mainland Europe)

Noun

quarter m (oblique plural quarters, nominative singular quarters, nominative plural quarter)

1. (chiefly Anglo-Norman) quarter (one fourth)

References

• quarter on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub
• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (quartier, supplement)