quarrel
Pluralquarrels
Verbquarrels
Pluralquarrels
Formsquarrels
- 1A dispute or heated argument between people or groups, especially one carried on in words.
The neighbors finally patched up their quarrel over the shared fence.
A quarrel broke out between the two coaches after the disputed call.
Similarargument, fight, dispute, disagreement, altercation
Note
The noun came into English as Middle English querele, from Anglo-Norman and Middle French, and it once ranged much wider: armed combat, trial by combat, a legal claim, even a lament. Modern English keeps the dispute and, in the grievance sense, the complaint. A quarrel is something you get into, about something as small as what food to order, and later patch up.
- 2To argue fiercely or squabble, or to fall out so that people are no longer on friendly terms.
Children who quarrel constantly can still grow up to be close friends.
The two founders quarreled bitterly over money and have not spoken since.
Similarargue, fight, squabble, bicker, row
Oppositeagree
Note
Spelling is the first decision with this verb. American English writes quarreled and quarreling, while British English doubles the l in quarrelled and quarrelling. The other party comes after with, and members of a group quarrel among themselves, as in Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843): “we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves.”
- 3A ground for dispute or objection, or a complaint, often after a form of have (to have no quarrel with someone); also, the resulting ill will and unhappiness.
Critics had little quarrel with the film's acting but found its plot thin.
The union's quarrel is not with automation itself but with how fast it is arriving.
Similarobjection, complaint, grievance, problem, issue
Note
What separates the grievance from the row can be a word or two. I have no quarrel with her means you hold nothing against her, while I had a quarrel with my sister more likely means you argued. A grievance can also be a cause: The Life and Death of Jack Straw (1593) has subjects rising in mutiny “under a show of quarrel good and just”.
- 4To find fault with something, or to raise petty objections to it.
It is hard to quarrel with results like these.
Several reviewers quarreled with the novel's rushed ending.
Similardispute, challenge, question, criticize
Note
Everything turns on what follows with. Quarrel with a person and you argue, as in the everyday verb; quarrel with a thing (a mistake, a result, one's lot) and you find fault with it. That makes it a graceful way to concede a small point: the Earl of Roscommon's 1680 translation of Horace says of a well-written poem, “I will not quarrel with a slight mistake.”
- 5An arrow or bolt shot from a crossbow or an arbalest, a large late form of crossbow, traditionally made with a head that is square in cross section.
Archaeologists recovered dozens of iron quarrels from the ditch below the castle wall.
Here be two arblasts, comrade, with windlaces and quarrells—to the barbican with you, and see you drive each bolt through a Saxon brain.
1819, Walter Scott, IvanhoeSimilarbolt
Note
A different word that only shares the spelling: this quarrel is named for the bolt's square head and goes back to the Indo-European word for “four”, while the quarrel of an argument came from Anglo-Norman and French querele. Historical fiction reaches for it. Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819) sends a defender to the barbican with arblasts and quarrels, and Arthur Conan Doyle in 1891 has one stick quivering in the boards. It was also called a quarry.
- 6A tendency or readiness to argue and squabble with others; a contentious temper.
Similarcontentiousness, quarrelsomeness, belligerence, combativeness
Note
Without an article, the word stops naming a single argument and names a temper. In Shakespeare's Othello, one more cup will leave a drinker “as full of quarrel and offence as my young mistress' dog”, and Francis Bacon in 1605 sorts beasts and birds into those of prey, of game and of quarrel. The use is rare; for the trait itself, quarrelsomeness is the safer word.
- 7Followed by at: to disagree with something, or to take offense at it.
Note
The preposition is what dates it: quarrel at has dropped out of use. Present-day English quarrels with a ruling, as in the fault-finding verb, and takes offense at a slight. Put quarrel at into a modern sentence and readers will hear it as deliberately old, so keep it for period color.
- 8A small square-shaped opening in the tracery, the ornamental stonework, of a window.
The mason cut a quarrel in the tracery of the east window to let more light into the chapel.
Above the twin arches, four small quarrels pierce the stone tracery.
Note
This architectural use goes back to Middle English, where quarrel already named a small, perhaps square-shaped opening in window tracery. The square is the thread that ties it to the square-headed crossbow bolt and to the lattice-window pane. The use is now obsolete, so in a description of an old window today a quarrel will almost always be read as the pane, not as an opening in the stonework.
- 9A cutting tool or chisel whose end is shaped like a diamond or a square.
The joiner set the point of his quarrel on the mark and struck it sharply with the mallet.
Masons kept their quarrels sharp, since a dull edge would crack the stone.
Note
This is a tool name that has passed out of use, and it was rare even when current. Middle English gave the same name to a needle, possibly one square in cross-section, which suggests the word followed the shape of the point rather than the work, as with the crossbow bolt. In an old text it means the tool; a writer today should simply say chisel.
- 10One of the small diamond-shaped or square panes of glass set into a latticed window.
- 11To argue or squabble with someone; used transitively, with the person as the direct object.
- 12A square tile, also known as a quarry tile; in uncountable use, the same tiles taken collectively.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of quarrel apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origins
From Middle English querele ('dispute, argument, complaint, lament'), borrowed from Anglo-Norman and Middle French querele, querelle, and ultimately from Latin querēla, querella ('dispute, complaint, grievance, lament'). The Latin word was formed from querī ('to complain, to lament') plus a noun-forming suffix, and querī comes from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwes- ('to puff; to sigh').
From Middle English querelen ('to dispute, quarrel; to assert one's claims; to rebel'), which was formed from the noun querele (see etymology 1). Compare Anglo-Norman, Middle French, and Old French quereler, quereller ('to argue with, dispute; to criticize; to bring a legal suit'), and modern French quereller ('to quarrel, squabble').
From Middle English quarrel ('crossbow bolt'), from Anglo-Norman, Middle French, and Old French quarel, quarrel ('crossbow bolt; square or rectangular floor tile; small window pane'), from Late Latin quarellus, quadrellus ('crossbow bolt; paving stone; tile'). This came from Latin quadrum ('a square') plus a diminutive suffix, and quadrum ultimately derives from quattuor ('four'), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres ('four'). It is a doublet of carreau.