[f. QUARTER v. + -ING1.] The action of the verb.
1. Division into four equal parts; also, division in general.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, I. ix. 23. The quartering of the sweard of Ant-hils, casting their ballas’t, & playning their Plots for pasture.
1694. Phil. Trans., XVIII. 70. The halving, trisecting, quartering, &c. is performed by extracting the Square Root,… &c. of the Terms.
1727–41. [see QUARTERIZATION].
1895. Pall Mall Gaz., 18 Jan., 10/3. Even in ‘quartering’—the term for breaking up the great nodules of flint—it is not muscle, but eye, that tells.
2. Her. The dividing of a shield into quarters; the marshalling or bringing in of various coats upon one shield, to denote the alliances of one family with the heiresses of others.
1592. Wyrley, Armorie, 4. An other thing that is amisse … is the quartering of many marks in one shield, coate, or banner.
1595. Blanchardyn, ii. (1890), 15. Then questioned he with his Master, of the blazonry of armes, and ye quartering of these coates.
1605. Camden, Rem. (1636), 225. Quartering of Coates, beganne, first … in Spaine in the Armes of Castile and Leon.
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Quartering, in heraldry, the act of dividing a coat into four or more quarters … by parting, couping, &c. Ibid., Colombiere reckons twelve sorts of quarterings.
1893. Cussans, Her. (ed. 3), 166. Quartering … was not generally adopted until the end of the Fourteenth Century. The manner in which various coats are brought in, and marshalled by Quartering [etc.].
b. pl. The various coats marshalled upon a shield; rarely sing., one of these coats.
1719. Ashmole, Berkshire, II. 214. A Surcoat … of the Quarterings impaled with Fetiplace.
1763. C. Johnston, Reverie, II. 55. I have nine quarterings more than he.
1826. Disraeli, Viv. Grey, VI. iv. He did nothing but … think of the quarterings of his immaculate shield.
1879. Geo. Eliot, Theo. Such, ii. 42. Some of them … belong to families with many quarterings.
transf. 1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 229. The pride of colour is very great in the West Indies, and they have as many quarterings as a German prince in his coat of arms.
3. The assigning of quarters to a person; the action of taking up quarters; † a place in which one is or may be quartered.
1625. Bp. Mountagu, App. Cæsar., xviii. 236. Heaven … is not … so narrowed … that there cannot be divers Designations, Regions, Habitations, Mansions, or Quarterings there.
1747. H. Walpole, Lett. (1846), II. 177. A motion for inquiring into useless places and quarterings.
b. spec. The billeting of soldiers; the fact of having soldiers quartered upon one; the provision of quarters for soldiers.
1646. Sir E. Nicholas, in N. Papers (Camden), 68. Your Honours frends at Winterborne are well, but much oppressed with quarteringe.
1667. Ormonde MSS., in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 58. Your petitioner was heretofore charged with the quartering of two private souldiers.
1705. Lond. Gaz., No. 4098/2. The Inhabitants … much impoverished by the Quartering of Soldiers.
1867. Smiles, Huguenots Eng., xii. (1880), 205. In anticipation of the quartering of the dragoons on the family, his wife had gone into concealment.
4. Build. a. The placing or using of quarters in construction. b. Work formed of quarters. c. Wood in the form, or of the size, of quarters.
1703. T. N., City & C. Purchaser, 232. Quartering … signifies the putting in of Quarters. Sometimes ’tis us’d to signifie the Quarters themselves.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 580. The braces should be rated … at a superior price to that of the quarterings.
1854. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XV. 255. Farms … built of quartering and weather boarding.
5. Driving on the quarters of a road.
1815. Scott, Paul’s Lett. (1839), 207. The French postilions … contrived, by dint of quartering and tugging, to drag us safe through.
1825. C. M. Westmacott, Engl. Spy, I. 313. No ruts or quarterings now.
6. The moon’s passage from one quarter to another; also = QUARTER 8 b.
1854. Tomlinson, trans. Arago’s Astron., 67. Changes of weather are not more frequent at the moon’s quarterings than at any other period.
1880. L. Wallace, Ben-Hur, 234. Before the new moon … passes into its next quartering.
7. attrib. and Comb., as quartering-block, -knife; quartering-belt, a belt connecting pulleys that have their axles at right angles to each other (Knight, Dict. Mech., 1875); quartering-hammer, a steel-hammer with which the rough masses of flint are shaped for flaking (ibid.); quartering-machine, a machine for boring the wrist-pin holes in driving-wheels a quarter of a circle apart (ibid.); † quartering-money, money paid in lieu of giving quarters to soldiers.
1688. in Wodrow, Hist. Ch. Scot. (1721), I. 283. Exacting Cess or Quartering-money for more Soldiers than were actually present.
1818. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XXXIII. 425. Why do they … resort to gags, dungeons, halters, axes, and quartering-knives?
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xii. III. 218. Those who were doomed to the gallows and the quartering block.
