quiver
/ˈkwɪvɚ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.84 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A container for arrows, crossbow bolts or darts, such as those fired from a bow, crossbow or blowgun.
noun
A ready storage location for figurative tools or weapons.
noun
A multidigraph, especially in the context of representation theory.
Example Sentences
- "Don Pedro: Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly."
- "Arrows were carried in quiver, called also an arrow case, which served for the magazine, arrows for immediate use were worn in the girdle."
- "He's got lots of sales pitches in his quiver."
- "[...] there was a little quiver fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus; and 'a would about and about, and come you in and come you in."
- "The birds chaunt melodie on euerie buſh, The ſnakes^([sic – meaning ſnake]) lies rolled in the chearefull ſunne, The greene leaues quiuer with the cooling winde, And make a checkerd ſhadow on the ground: [...]"
- "And left the limbs still quivering on the ground."
Etymology
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, 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").
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: quiver, quivre, *kokar, -, *kökexür, *cwifer
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈkwɪvɚ/
- British English: /ˈkwɪvə/
Usage
Inflected Forms
quivers (plural)
more quiver (comparative)
most quiver (superlative)
quivers (present, singular)
quivering (participle, present)
quivered (participle, past)
quivered (past)