[L. quid what, anything, something, neut. sing. of quis who, any one, etc.]
1. That which a thing is. Cf. QUIDDITY 1.
1606. Marston, Parasitaster, I. ii. My age Hath seene the beings and the quide [sic] of things.
1611. L. Barry, Ram Alley, in Dodsley (1874), X. 363. A widow that has known the quid of things.
1675. [Bp. Croft], Naked Truth, 25. The quid, the quale, the quantum, and such like quack-salving forms.
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Hence we have two kinds of quids, nominal … and real.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 270. When I do not know the ‘quid’ of anything how can I know the ‘quale’?
† 2. = QUIDDIT, QUIDDITY 2. Obs. rare–1.
1576. Gascoigne, Steele Gl. (Arb.), 77. That Logike leape not ouer euery stile … With curious quids to maintaine argument.
3. U.S. (abbrev. of tertium quid.) A name given to a section of the Republican party in 1805–11.
1805. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1830), IV. 45. Those called the third party, or Quids.
1882. H. Adams, J. Randolph, vii. 181–2. He belonged to the third party, the quiddists or quids, being that tertium quid, that ‘third something,’ which had no name, but was really an anti-Madison movement, an ‘anti-Yazoo’ combination.
