quire

Pluralquires

Formsquires, quiring, quired

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A collection of twenty-four or twenty-five sheets of paper of the same size and quality, equal to one-twentieth of a ream.

   She bought a quire of fine writing paper for her letters.

   The stationer measured out twenty quires to make up a full ream.

   Note

   A stationer's count of loose sheets, not a bound object. Twenty of them make a ream, and that ratio is old: James Edwin Thorold Rogers records that in 1533 the ream contained twenty quires. The word comes from Latin quaternus, "fourfold". It has nothing to do with the church quire, which is a separate word descended from Latin chorus; see the architectural quire.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A set of leaves stitched together, originally four sheets folded into eight leaves and sixteen pages; usually a single signature, though sometimes several nested ones.

   The conservator carefully separated each quire to repair the damaged stitching.

   The medieval codex was assembled from dozens of nested quires.

   Similargathering, signature

   Note

   The number four is built into the name. The word runs from Middle English quayer through Old French quaer to Latin quaternus, "fourfold", after the four folded sheets of the original gathering. The same Latin word reached modern French separately as cahier, so the two are doublets. In bookbinding the quire is the unit of sewing: a book block is a stack of quires, whether each is a single signature or several nested together.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To prepare quires by stitching folded leaves of paper together into gatherings.

   Apprentice binders quire the folded sheets by hand before sewing them.

   She prefers to quire each section carefully to keep the pages aligned.

   Note

   A binder's verb that bibliographers mostly meet as a noun: quiring, the arrangement of a book's leaves into stitched gatherings. Scholars of old volumes check whether the quiring runs regularly alongside the paging and signatures. Alfred William Pollard asks whether a modern binder followed the original quiring. Read this way, quiring is evidence of how a book was first put together.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   The part of a church used by the choir, often one arm of a cross-shaped church near the apse.

   The cathedral's quire was separated from the nave by an ornate stone screen.

   Restorers uncovered medieval paintings on the ceiling of the quire.

   Similarchoir, chancel

   Note

   Underneath the spelling, the church quire is the word choir. It comes from Middle English quer and Old French quer, from Latin chorus, and before that from Greek khorós, "company of dancers or singers". The space is named for the singers who occupy it. Architectural writing keeps the qu- spelling for the part of the building. That gives a writer a handy way to name the place rather than the people singing in it.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A piece of writing such as a book, poem, or pamphlet.

   The poet circulated his latest quire among close friends.

   A slender quire of political pamphlets sold quickly in the square.

6. 6
   verbliterary

   Alternative form of choir.

   I saw the 'potamus take wing / Ascending from the damp savannas, / And quiring angels round him sing / The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

   1920, T. S. Eliot, “Hippopotamus”

   He went on down the hill, toward the dark woods within which the liquid silver voices of the birds called unceasing-the rapid and urgent beating of the urgent and quiring heart of the late spring night.

   1938, William Faulkner, Barn Burning

   Note

   The verb is intransitive, so you quire, or quire to someone, but never quire a song. Its forms are quires, quiring and quired. Poets favor the present participle used as an adjective: Shakespeare's orbs are "still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins", T. S. Eliot has "quiring angels", and Faulkner writes of the "quiring heart" of a spring night. Outside verse, use choir or plain sing.

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