Now rare. Forms: 3–4 quiture, 4 quyt-, 5 quet-, 5–6 quytt-, (5 -ur), 6–7 quitture, (7 -ur); 4 qwetour, quet-, quitoure, 5 quyteour, whitour, whytoure, 7 quittour; 5 quetor, 7–9 quittor; 4–5 quyter(e, quytter(e, 5 quet-, quiter, 6– quitter, (8 coutre). [Perh. a. OF. quiture, cuiture cooking, decoction, etc. (but app. not recorded in the specific sense of the Eng. word).]

1

  † 1.  Pus; suppurating matter; a purulent discharge from a wound or sore. Obs.

2

1297.  R. Glouc. (Rolls), 8596. Heo … wess hor vet & clene þe quiture [v.rr. qwetour, quetoure] out soȝte.

3

c. 1305.  St. Edmund, 159, in E. E. P. (1862), 75. Moche del his bodi orn in quitoure & in blode.

4

1382.  Wyclif, Job ii. 8. [Job] with a sherd scrapide awei the quyture.

5

c. 1400.  Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 37. Þilke quyttere & blood schulde lette þe helynge of þe wounde.

6

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 525/2. Whytowre, of a soore, sanies.

7

1543.  Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., Interpret. Strange Wordes, Colde apostemes utterynge quytture or fylthe.

8

1601.  Holland, Pliny, II. 424. The filthy excrements, attyr, and quitter, that gather in sores and wounds.

9

1686.  Plot, Staffordsh., 305. The nourishing juice … emptying it self by those corrupted sores in a quitture or Sanies.

10

1689.  Hickeringill, Ceremony Monger, Concl. i. Wks. 1709, II. 454. To let the corrupted Quitter out.

11

  fig.  c. 1380.  Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 231. So shulde men … thriste oute þo quyter of hor olde synnes.

12

  2.  Farriery. = Quitter-bone (see 4).

13

1703.  Lond. Gaz., No. 3964/4. A Quitter lately taken out of his further Foot behind.

14

1794.  Sporting Mag., III. 34. Sand-cracks, quittors, strains in the back-sinews.

15

1843.  Youatt, Horse, xix. 394. Quittor … has been described as being the result of neglected or bad tread, or over-reach.

16

  † 3.  The dross of tin. Obs. rare–0.

17

1674.  Blount, Glossogr. (ed. 4).

18

1736.  Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. [Hence in Johnson and mod. Dicts.]

19

  4.  Comb. † quitter-bone, an ulcer or suppurating sore on the coronet of a horse’s hoof. Obs. (See also TWITTER-BONE.)

20

1598.  Florio, Seta,… a disease in a horse called a quitter-bone.

21

1614.  B. Jonson, Barth. Fair, II. v. She has … the quitter-bone i’ the tother legge.

22

1639.  T. de Gray, Expert Farrier, II. xvii. 298. This [a Quitter-bone] commeth to a horse by some hurt he hath taken in the foot.

23

1710.  Lond. Gaz., No. 4771/4. Lately cured of a Coutre Bone on the off Foot behind.

24

1755.  J. Shebbeare, Lydia (1769), I. 337. A roan horse, with … a small quitter bone on the farther leg before.

25

1798.  Lawrence, Treat. Horses, II. 520. A quittor, formerly called by our farriers a quittor bone.

26

  Hence † Quitterish, † Quitterous, † Quittery adjs., containing, or of the nature of, pus. Obs.

27

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VII. lxii. (1495), 278. It bredeth a drye scabbe and not quyttery.

28

1543.  Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., II. i. iii. 48. Apostemes,… quitterous, ful of water.

29

1582.  Batman, On Barthol., xxix. 97. In whom the spettle is quitterie and venemous.

30

1668.  Culpepper & Cole, Barthol. Anat., II. v. 95. Of a quittorish nature.

31