a. and sb. Obs. Also 5 -trebil, -tribill, 6 -treple, quadreble, -ible. [Alteration of F. quadruple on anal. of trible TREBLE.]
A. adj. = QUADRUPLE.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. cxxv. (1495), 925. Thre is treble to one; and fowre is quatreble to one. [See also QUINIBLE.]
c. 1400. trans. Secreta Secret., Gov. Lordsh., 82. Treble or quatreblee [odours].
1454. Rolls Parlt., V. 273. The quatreble value of Wolles … so shippid.
1489. Barbour’s Bruce (Edinb. MS.), XVIII. 30. He suld fecht that day Thocht tribill and quatribill war thai.
1553. Respublica (Brandl), II. iii. 4. Ye, double knave youe, will ye never be other?… Ye, quadrible knave [etc.].
1556. J. Heywood, Spider & F., xcvi. 8. Double or treble (yea quatreble) cause.
[1735. W. Hawkins, Stat. at Large, I. 425. The same Hostler shall incur the quatreble Value of that which he hath taken.)
B. sb. 1. A fourfold amount.
14[?]. Lansdowne MS. 763, in N. & Q., 4th Ser. (1870), VI. 117/1. The same proportion that is betwene twoe smale numberis, the same is betwene doubles and treblis, and quatrebils and quiniblis.
1429. Rolls Parlt., IV. 349/1. Ye parte pleynyng shal have ye quatreble of his damages.
1540–1. Elyot, Image Gov., 51. If they had dooen euill, they shuld paie the quatreple or foure tymes so much as they receiued.
2. Mus. A note higher than the treble, being an octave above the mean. (Cf. QUINIBLE.)
1528. [see next quot.].
1855–7. W. Chappell, Pop. Mus. Olden Time, I. 34. To sing a ‘quatrible’ [means] to descant by fourths. The … term is used by Cornish in his Treatise between Trowthe and Enformacion, 1528. Ibid. (1870), in N. & Q., 4th Ser. VI. 117/1. The quatreble began and ended a twelfth above [the plain song], and the quinible a fifteenth.
Hence † Quatreble (quadrible) v., to quadruple; also Mus., to sing a quatreble.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. ix. (1495), 759. Some serpentes haue many hedys, for some ben dowble and some treblyd and some quatrebled.
c. 1500. Prov., in Antiq. Rep. (1809), IV. 406. He that quadribilithe to hy, his voice is variable.
1607. J. Norden, Surv. Dial., II. 67. The profite was twice quadrebled.
