Quire

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)).  The 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."  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 and the related word was the Medieval Latin quorus, a variant of chorus.  The word is a homophone of choir and doublet of cahier.  Quire is a noun and quired & quiring are verbs; the noun plural is quires.

The quire, Westminster Abbey, London.