quiver - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English quiver, from Anglo-Norman quivre, from Old Dutch cocare (source of Dutch koker, and cognate to Old English cocer (“quiver, case”)), from Proto-West Germanic *kokar (“container”), said to be from Hunnic,[1] possibly from Proto-Mongolic *kökexür (“leather vessel for liquids”); see there for more. Replaced early modern cocker, the inherited reflex of that West Germanic word.

The mathematical sense originated as German Köcher in a 1972 paper by Pierre Gabriel; it was likely chosen because a quiver contains arrows, while a digraph contains directed edges (also called "arrows").

quiver (plural quivers)

A bow and quiver

  1. (weaponry) A container for arrows, crossbow bolts or darts, such as those fired from a bow, crossbow or blowgun.
    • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], line 271:
      Don Pedro: Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.
    • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 39:
      Arrows were carried in quiver, called also an arrow case, which served for the magazine, arrows for immediate use were worn in the girdle.
  2. (figuratively) A ready storage location for figurative tools or weapons.
    He's got lots of sales pitches in his quiver.
  3. (obsolete) A vulva.
  4. (obsolete) The collective noun for cobras.
  5. (mathematics) A multidigraph, especially in the context of representation theory.

arrow container

collective noun for cobras

shaking or moving with a slight trembling motion

From Middle English quiver, cwiver, from Old English *cwifer, probably related to cwic (“alive”).

quiver (comparative more quiver, superlative most quiver)

  1. (archaic) Nimble, active.

From Middle English quiveren, probably from the adjective.

quiver (third-person singular simple present quivers, present participle quivering, simple past and past participle quivered)

  1. (intransitive) To shake or move with slight and tremulous motion.
    Synonyms: tremble, quake, shudder, shiver, flutter

shake or move with slight and tremulous motion

quiver (plural quivers)

  1. The act of quivering.

  2. ^ Etymology dictionary, enacademic.com, "quiver"

From Anglo-Norman quivre, from Old Dutch cocare; perhaps ultimately from Proto-Mongolic *kökexür or Hunnic.[1] Doublet of coker.

quiver (plural quivers)

  1. A quiver (a receptacle for arrows)
  2. (rare, vulgar) A vulva.
  1. ^ quiver”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

From Old English *cwifer, probably related to cwic (“alive”).

quiver

  1. fast, speedy, rapid
  2. energetic, vigourous, vibrant