Quire (pronounced kwahyuhr)
(1) A
set of twenty-four (24) uniform sheets of paper (in commerce, sometimes sold as
twenty-five (25) sheets, analogous with baker’s
dozen); a twentieth of a ream.
(2) In
bookbinding, a section of printed leaves in proper sequence after folding;
gathering; usually four sheets of paper folded once to form a section of 16
pages.
(3) An
alternative spelling of choir (archaic except in church architecture).
(4) A
book, poem, or pamphlet (archaic).
(5) In
church architecture, one quarter of a cruciform church, the area of a church or
cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and singer of the choir (choir
& quire used interchangeably until the mid-nineteenth century when the former
began to prevail, providing a useful distinction between the singers and the
place they stood).
1175–1225:
From the Middle English quayer, from the
Anglo-Norman quaier (a short book)
& quier, from the Old French
quaier & caier (sheet of paper folded in four (which evolved into the
Modern French cahier)) & quaer, from the Medieval Latin quaternum (set of four sheets of
parchment or paper, from the Vulgar Latin quaternus, from the Classical Latin quarternī (four each)). Root of the Latin quater (four times) was the primitive Indo-European kwetwer (four). The meaning “a standard unit for selling
paper" was first recorded in the late fourteenth century and the phrase
“in quires” is attested from the late fifteenth, meaning "unbound." A homophone of choir and doublet of cahier; quire
is a noun, the verbs (used with or without object) are quired & quiring.
The meaning
"a standard unit for selling paper" (which became typically 24 (two
dozen) or 25 (one twentieth of a ream)) sheets is recorded from the late fourteenth
century and by the mid fifteenth-century, quires had come to mean also "unbound"
in the sense of loose-leaf. Quire was
also an early form and later variant spelling of the Middle English choir from the
Old French quer & queor, variants of cuer.
Related to this was the Medieval Latin quorus, a variant of chorus.
No comments:
Post a Comment