ppl. a. [f. QUARTER v.]
1. Cut into quarters; divided in four; spec. of quarter-cleft timber, which being afterwards cut into planks shows the grain to advantage.
1502. Priv. Purse Exp. Eliz. of York (1830), 74. For twoo quartred bourdes with vysys.
1601. Yarington, Two Lament. Trag., IV. iii. in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. 63. Bull always strips all quartered traitors quite.
1626. Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Sea-men, 32. Musquet shot, Colyuer shot, quartred shot.
1719. London & Wise, Compl. Gard., 187. The most convenient and most noble is a Lattice of quarter’d Wood, or Heart of Oak.
1805. Wordsworth, Prelude, II. 83. Through three divisions of the quartered year.
1854. P. B. St. John, Amy Moss, 21. These palisades were formed of quartered oak.
b. Her. Of a shield or arms: Divided or arranged quarterly. Of a cross: Quarterly-pierced.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, Her., D ij b. Certan armys ther be quarterit and irrasit as here apperis, the Wich … ar called quarterit armys irrasit.
1864. Boutell, Her. Hist. & Pop., xvi. 235. He assumed the quartered arms on his accession to the ducal dignity.
1893. Cussans, Heraldry (ed. 4), 166. The earliest known example of a quartered shield occurs on the monument of Eleanor … wife of Edward the First.
† c. Of a building: Cruciform. Obs. rare–1.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Cruzero en edeficio, a kinde of quartered building, Structura quadrivialis.
2. Mil. Lodged in or belonging to quarters.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., IV. iv. 18. When they heare their Roman horses neigh, Behold their quarter’d Fires.
1824. Wiffen, Tasso, I. vi. To breme winter’s wing The quartered hosts give place.
3. Belonging to a quarter or part of the horizon.
1671. Milton, P. R., IV. 202. And on the earth Nations besides from all the quarter’d winds.
4. Having quarters of a specified character.
The sense in first quot. is not clear: the F. orig. has quarréz ‘square.’
[1481. Caxton, Godeffroy, 286. His armes grete and wel quartred.]
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 5. The lambes that forbeare grasse the longest prove … the straightest, and best quartered.
1891. Cent. Dict., s.v., A short-quartered horse. Ibid., Low-quartered shoes.
5. Carpentry. Made of quarters.
1842–59. Gwilt, Archit. (ed. 4), § 2024. The framework of timber used for dividing the internal parts of a house into rooms is called a partition or quartered partition.
