Forms: 5 qwh-, qvarte, 5–7 quarte, (7 dial. whart), 4– quart. [a. F. quarte fem. (13th c. in sense 1) and quart masc. (= It. quarta, quarto, Sp. cuarta, cuarto), repr. L. quarta, -tum, fem. and neut. of quartus fourth.]
1. An English measure of capacity, one-fourth of a gallon, or two pints.
c. 1325. Poem times Ed. II., xxix. He wil drawe at a drawȝt A gode quart other more Of gode ale.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Miller’s T., 311. This Carpenter … broghte of myghty Ale a large quart.
c. 1420. Liber Cocorum (1862), 26. Of hony a qwharte thou take.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, xl. 27. They drank twa quartis, sowp and sowp.
1555. Eden, Decades, 197. They take for euery man two or three quartes of water.
1579. in W. H. Turner, Select. Rec. Oxford, 401. An ale quarte for a penye.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., I. 506. Your wines shalbe sold by hogs heads, pipes or buttes, but not by quartes nor pintes.
1709. Prior, Yng. Gentlm. in Love, 58. Ne … drank a Quart of Milk and Tea.
1816. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 782. Four ounces of Brazil-wood … in a quart of water.
1896. Sir M. Hicks-Beach, in Daily News, 23 July, 4/3. What he might describe in homely phrase as putting a quart into a pint pot.
fig. 1797. Colman, Heir at Law, III. ii. He can ladle you out Latin by the quart.
b. A vessel holding a quart; a quart-pot or quart-bottle.
c. 1450. Myrc, Par. Pr., 712. False measures, busshelles, galones,… quartes.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, xxvi. 95. Mony fowll drunckart, With can and collep, cop and quart.
1535. Lyndesay, Satyre, 1373. To fill the Quart I sall rin to the toun.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., Ind. ii. 89. Because she brought stone-Iugs, and no seal’d quarts.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 294. 3 Quarts, their lids open,… born by Quaffer.
c. 1800. [see GILL sb.3 2].
1885. H. Finch-Hatton, Advance Austral., 111. A tin quart of water is set down by the fire.
c. attrib., as quart-ale, bottle, flagon, -measure, retort (see quot.). See also QUART-POT.
1454. Paston Lett., No. 219, I. 307. To sende hom wyn and ij. quart botelys.
1611. Florio, Quarta,… a quart measure.
c. 1650. Brathwait, Barnabees Jrnl., IV. (1818), 167. Thence to Lonesdale, where were at it Boyes that scorned quart-ale by statute.
1764. Colman, Prose Sev. Occas. (1787), II. 51. To see a man get into a Quart Bottle.
1767. Woulfe, in Phil. Trans., LVII. 521, note. What goes by the name of a quart retort holds better than two gallons of water.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, xvi. He filled a quart flagon.
2. [F. quart m.] A quarter of something. Obs.
1454. Paston Lett., No. 201, I. 278. Be the space of on qaurte [quarte] of an houre.
1561. Hollybush, Hom. Apoth., 9. Take a quarte of an unce.
† b. A quarter of a pound. Obs. rare–1.
1496. Fysshynge w. Angle (1883), 10. Take … a lytyll iuce of walnot leuys and a quarte of alym.
† c. ‘Prob., the fourth part of the great tithes’ (Jam.). Obs. rare–1.
1630. Gordon, Hist. Earls Sutherld. (1813), 32. Ther peculiar landward (or rurall) churches, together with the particular tithes, crofts, manses, gleibs, and quartes, ar severallie appoynted to everie one of the dignites and channons.
† 3. a. A quarter of the horizon. b. A quarter, region. Obs. rare.
1559. W. Cunningham, Cosmogr. Glasse, 154. Betwixt either of these quartes, two other windes brost out.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. x. 14. Albanact had all the Northerne part … And Camber did possesse the Westerne quart.
† 4. [ad. Sp. cuarto.] A Spanish copper coin, worth four maravedis. Obs.
1631. Mabbe, Celestina, IV. 52. I neuer wanted … a Quarte, that is, the eighth part of sixepence to send for wine.
1777. W. Dalrymple, Trav. Sp. & Port., xxviii. An officer of the customs, demanded a toll, each horse paying three quarts.
5. Mus. The interval of a fourth. rare.
1890. Academy, 18 Jan., 51. A succession of parallel quarts, quints, and octaves,… intolerable to modern ears.
