Quail

/kweɪl/ · verb

Meaning

(intransitive) To waste away; to fade, to wither..

Definitions by Sense

1. (intransitive) To waste away; to fade, to wither.
2. (transitive, now rare) To daunt or frighten (someone).
3. (intransitive) To lose heart or courage; to be daunted or fearful.
4. (intransitive) Of courage, faith, etc.: to slacken, to give way.
5. Any of various small game birds of the genera Coturnix, Anurophasis or Perdicula in the Old World family Phasianidae or of the New World family Odontophoridae.
6. (uncountable) The meat from this bird eaten as food.
7. (obsolete) A prostitute.
8. (obsolete) To curdle or coagulate, as milk does.

Example Sentences

To tell the truth the prospect rather quailed him – wandering about in the gloomy corridors of a nunnery.

Death dvvels vvithin vs, and if gentle Peace / Diſcend not ſoone, our ſorrovves to ſurceaſe, / Latium (alreadie quaild) vvill be deſtroyd.

But when he meant to quaile and shake the Orbe, / He was as ratling Thunder.

Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his blood being up, he was not to be cowed by all the generations of Osborne; rallying instantly, he replied to the bullying look of his father, with another so indicative of resolution and defiance, that the elder man quailed in his turn, and looked away.

Mr. Utterson had already quailed at the name of Hyde; but when the stick was laid before him, he could doubt no longer: broken and battered as it was, he recognized it for one that he had himself presented many years before to Henry Jekyll.

Stouter hearts than a woman's have quailed in this terrible winter. Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger one to lean on; so I have come to you now, with an offer of marriage.

The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of the Ministry of Truth, with the light no longer shining on them, looked grim as the loopholes of a fortress. His heart quailed before the enormous pyramidal shape. It was too strong, it could not be stormed.

His colleagues quailed when, in 1986, he first sat on the court as a brash 50-year-old whose experience had been mostly as a combative government lawyer: a justice who, in that sanctum of columns and deep judicial silence, was suddenly firing questions like grapeshot.

Synonyms for quail

Antonyms for quail

Related Words

Word Forms

• quails
• quailing
• quailed
• queal
• quele
• quail

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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