[f. QUAIL v.1 + -ING1.] The action of giving way, failing, losing heart, etc.
1549. Coverdale, etc. Erasm. Par. Tim., Ded. 1. Seyng Paule was so afrayed of their quayling, whome he had instructed.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., IV. i. 39. There is no quailing now, Because the King is certainely possest Of all our purposes.
1627. G. Hakewill, Power & Prov. God, II. i. § 1. 65. The quailing and withering of all things by the recesse of the Sunne.
1642. Rogers, Naaman, 557. So farre from quailing of judgement.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Quailing of the Stomack, beginning to be qualmish or uneasy.
1848. C. Brontë, Jane Eyre (1857), 245. I bore with her feeble minded quailings.
