Quire
From Design+Encyclopedia, the free encyclopedia on good design, art, architecture, creativity, engineering and innovation.
Quire
The word quire is classified as a noun and subject to the field of lexical morphology. Synonyms for quire are pack, gathering, batch, set, and collection. Antonyms for quire would include disperse, spread, and separate. Cognates of the word quire include the Spanish cuaderno and the French carnet. Variants of the word quire include quireful, quireless, quirewise, and quiresome.
Etymological perspective, lexicon, linguistic derivation, language change, vocables.
Quire
Quire is an English word with multiple linguistic and historical etymologies. Ultimately, the word quire was derived from the Latin word quaternus meaning ‘a set of four’ and the Old French quayer meaning ‘a set of four sheets of paper folded to make eight leaves’. This root was adopted into Middle English around 1000 CE to become quayr and eventually quire. It experienced morphological changes over time to become its current form. Pragmatically, quire also came to refer to a set size of paper, typically 20, 24, 25, 40, 48, 50, and 96 sheets. Historically, quire was used to refer to the workings of a guild or a monastic community, with each quire being composed of four divisions of a group of singers or scribes. As the craft of papermaking spread, quire also came to refer to the bookmaking process.
Etymology, Morphology, Historical, Pragmatics, Bookmaking
Quire
Quire is an archaic unit of paper, generally consisting of twenty-five sheets, sometimes twenty-four in Durrow Abbey. It has equivalents in many other languages and cultures. In French, it is called quaternum or quaternaire; in German, viertelbogen or viertell; in Spanish, cuadernillo or cuaderno; in Latin, quaternus; in Russian it is known as четверть or кварта; in Italian, quaternale or quaderno; in Dutch, vierling or kwart; in Portuguese, fascículo or quaderna; in Lithuanian, ketvirtinu or ketvirtas; in Gaelic, ceathramh; in Japanese, yonhon or sotogumi; in Greek, τεταρτημορία or τέταρτος; in Polish, czwórka or kwarta; in Bengali, চতুর্থাংশ; in Welsh, pedair canrif; in Kazakh, төрт бөлім; in Arabic, رباعي; in Hungarian, negyed; and in Croatian, četvrtina or četvrti.
Quire, quaternum, viertelbogen, cuadernillo, quaternus, четверть, quaternale, vierling, fascículo, ketvirtinu, ketvirtas, ceathramh, yonhon, sotogumi, τεταρτημορία, τέταρτος, czwórka, kwarta, চতুর্থাংশ, pedair canrif, төрт бөлім, رباعي, negyed, četvrtina,
Quire
Architecture is the practice of designing and constructing buildings. A quire is a basic unit of measurement in architecture, typically used to measure the height of a building or the length of a wall. It is also used to measure the length of the wall and to calculate the distance of any building from its nearest neighbour. Important works that employ this unit of measurement include the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Parthenon in Athens.
Quire, architecture, building, unit, measurement, height, length, wall, distance, Great Pyramid, Parthenon, Giza, Athens
CITATION : "Minh Nguyen. 'Quire.' Design+Encyclopedia. https://design-encyclopedia.com/define/quire?E=202200 (Accessed on October 14, 2026)"
Quire on Design+Encyclopedia
We have 220,822 Topics and 478,829 Entries and Quire has 4 entries on Design+Encyclopedia. Design+Encyclopedia is a free encyclopedia, written collaboratively by designers, creators, artists, innovators and architects. Become a contributor and expand our knowledge on Quire today.