quartering

Pluralquarterings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A division of something into four separate parts.

   The quartering of the estate left each heir with an equal share.

   Mapmakers often rely on the quartering of a region into manageable sections.

   Similardivision, partition, splitting

   Note

   Nearly every noun on this page is simply quarter + -ing, and this plain arithmetical one is the base. It counts easily, and in the plural it keeps company with doublings and halvings. David C. Schneider's Quantitative Ecology (1994) groups quarterings with them as proportional changes, set against additive ones. That is a useful frame for technical writing about scale.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of quarter.

   The chef is quartering tomatoes for the sauce.

   Workers were quartering the logs before loading them onto the cart.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs. After be it makes the progressive (she is quartering the apples); in noun position it works as a gerund (quartering logs is slow work). The verb behind it is usually transitive, so you quarter tomatoes, troops, logs or a shield. It can also stand alone meaning 'to lodge': the regiment was quartering in the town.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A method of execution in which the condemned person's body is cut into four pieces.

   Medieval courts sometimes ordered the quartering of those found guilty of treason.

   The quartering followed the hanging, completing a brutal sentence.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The provision of lodging for soldiers, especially when forced upon a private citizen's home.

   The quartering of British regulars became a major grievance before the revolution.

   Local families bore the cost of the quartering throughout the occupation.

   Similarbilleting, lodging, housing

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The division of a shield into four or more compartments, each bearing a different coat of arms.

   The quartering of the royal arms reflected centuries of dynastic marriages.

   Experts studied the quartering to trace the family's lineage.

   Note

   Heraldry keeps the name even when the arithmetic outgrows it: a shield may be quartered into four compartments or into many more. The word names the act or scheme of dividing the whole shield. Each compartment it produces is called a quartering in its own right, which is the single coat of arms. Read the article to tell them apart: the quartering of a shield, but a quartering on it.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   Any one of the several coats of arms arranged on a shield to indicate the bearer's descent.

   The first quartering represented the founder of the dynasty.

   Scholars identified each quartering by its distinctive emblem.

   Note

   A herald's unit of ancestry. Each coat of arms set on the escutcheon stands for a line the bearer descends from, so quarterings are counted and numbered: the first quartering, a shield of many quarterings. Used this way, the plural reads as a pedigree in shorthand, and a long list of quarterings advertises a long descent.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The searching of an area for prey by moving back and forth across it, as a hunting dog runs parallel to the wind to pick up a scent.

   The pointer's steady quartering covered the moor in a methodical pattern.

   Trainers praised the young dog's quartering during the hunt.

   Note

   The image comes from the field. Hunting dogs run parallel to the wind to catch a scent, crossing and recrossing the ground until it is covered. From there the word stretches to any searcher sweeping an area for prey in that methodical back-and-forth way. Its natural partners are a dog's quartering and quartering the ground.

8. 8
   adjective

   Of waves or another moving object, approaching from well behind the beam of a ship without coming from dead astern.

   The ship took the quartering sea on her stern.

   Sailors adjusted course to ride the quartering waves more comfortably.

   Note

   Sailors fix direction against the ship itself, and this word marks the band aft of the beam but short of dead astern. It sits beside head-on, abeam and astern when describing how waves strike a vessel, as in Duncan Bruce's Tanker Jetty Safety (2015). It is not comparable: a sea is quartering or it is not. It goes before its noun, as in a quartering sea or quartering waves.

9. 9
   adjective

   Approaching from behind and off to one side, so as to act partly as a crosswind and partly as a tailwind.

   A quartering tailwind complicated the approach to the short runway.

   The crew braced for the quartering wind on touchdown.

   Note

   Pilots borrowed the sailor's term and narrowed it to wind. A pilot breaks a quartering wind into two parts: a tailwind pushing from behind and a crosswind pushing sideways, and both must be allowed for. That is why it often appears as a quartering tailwind, which names the wind and its awkward component in one phrase.

10. 10
    adjective

    Set at a right angle to each other, as with locomotive cranks that lie in perpendicular planes.

    The quartering cranks ensured that one piston always had turning force.

    Mechanics realigned the quartering drive after the overhaul.

    Note

    The quarter here is a quarter turn: parts set a right angle apart, as a locomotive's cranks lie in planes at ninety degrees to each other. The word is a fixed engineering description rather than a matter of degree, so nothing is more or less quartering. It usually stands directly before the part it describes, as in quartering cranks.

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