Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A set of 24 or sometimes 25 sheets of paper of the same size and stock; one twentieth of a ream.
- noun A collection of leaves of parchment or paper, folded one within the other, in a manuscript or book.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To sing in concert or chorus; chant or sing harmoniously.
- To harmonize.
- To fold in quires, or with marks between quires.
- An obsolete form of
queer . - To nest within a once-folded outer sheet (one or more sheets of paper of the same size similarly folded); impose and print (separate pages of type) so that they can be properly outsetted or insetted in consecutive order.
- noun A set of four sheets of parchment or paper folded so as to make eight leaves: the ordinary unit of construction for early manuscripts and books.
- noun A set of one of each of the sheets of a book laid in consecutive order, ready for folding.
- noun A book.
- noun Twenty-four sheets of paper; the twentieth part of a ream.
- noun A body of singers; a chorus.
- noun The part of a church allotted to the choristers; the choir.
- noun A company or assembly.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete See
choir . - intransitive verb rare To sing in concert.
- noun A collection of twenty-four sheets of paper of the same size and quality, unfolded or having a single fold; one twentieth of a ream.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun archaic A
choir . - noun The architectural part of a church in which the choir resides, between the
nave and thesanctuary . - verb intransitive To sing in concert.
- noun 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. - noun bookbinding A set of
leaves which arestitched together, originally a set of four pieces of paper (eight leaves, sixteen pages). This is most often a singlesignature (i.e. group of four), but may be severalnested signatures. - noun A book, poem, or pamphlet.
- verb bookbinding To prepare quires by stitching together leaves of paper.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a quantity of paper; 24 or 25 sheets
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The quire is properly St Georges Chappel whose Rooff is very high and Carved very Curiously, all free stone, so is the rest of ye Church.
Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary 1888
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The Lanthorn in ye quire is vastly high and delicately painted and fine Carv'd worke all of wood, in it the bells used to be hung, five, the dimention of ye biggest was so much when they rung them it shooke ye quire so and ye Carv'd worke that it was thought unsafe, therefore they were taken down.
Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary 1888
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The rooff of the quire is very Curious, Carv'd stone and soe thinn to ye Leads one might grasp it between thumb and finger, and yet so well fixt as to be very strong.
Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary 1888
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Beyond the quire was the sanctuary that housed the tomb of the saint.
The Pillars of the Earth FOLLETT, Ken 1989
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There was a central door, which was called the quire door.
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But the best thing about the quire is the wooden stall-work, of early decorated, very beautiful.
Autobiography Airy, George Biddell, Sir 1896
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In the quire is a high tumbe, of one of them porturid with his wife.
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A chancellor of York, Thomas de Farnylaw, leaves books, bound and unbound, to the Vicar of Waghen; a volume of sermons and a "quire" to the church of Embleton; and a Bible and Concordance to be chained in the north porch of St. Nicholas 'Church, Newcastle, "for common use, for the good of the soul of his lord William of Middleton" (1378).
Old English Libraries; The Making, Collection and Use of Books During the Middle Ages 1911
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I was still trying to decipher the language (what the heck is a "quire"??) when it was followed quickly by:
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Hard, I found, to hold back a tear, and the goose pimples were not from the cold because it was a hot day, even in the quire.
fbharjo commented on the word quire
quire a fourfold word
January 17, 2007
reesetee commented on the word quire
In bookbinding, a gathering of printed sheets, originally comprised of 24 sheets cut from four large sheets produced by the paper maker. In modern use a quire is often reckoned as 25 sheets, so that a ream of 20 quires is now 500 sheets rather than the traditional 480.
February 22, 2007
fbharjo commented on the word quire
give it choir
September 8, 2012