subs. (colloquial).—A difficulty or doubt; ‘a low word’ (JOHNSON, 1755). Also as verb. = to hesitate; to puzzle.—GROSE (1785). [see quot. 1563.]
c. 1440. Religious Pieces [E.E.T.S.], II. Þe sexte vertue es strengthe … euynly to suffire þe wele and þe waa, welthe or WANDRETH.
1563. FOXE, Acts and Monuments [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 540. The k is prefixed; the old wandrethe (turbatio) becomes QUANDARY].
1590. GREENE, Never Too Late to Mend [Wks. viii. 84]. Thus in a QUANDARIE, he sate like one of Medusaes changlings.
d. 1655. T. ADAMS, Works. I. 505. He QUANDARIES whether to go forward to God, or … to turn back to the world.
1681. OTWAY, The Soldier’s Fortune, iii. I am QUANDARY’D like one going with a party to discover the enemy’s camp, but had lost his guide upon the mountains.
1748. SMOLLETT, Roderick Random, liv. Throw persons of honour into such QUANDARIES as might endanger their lives.
1874. E. WOOD, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., No. XXIII., 424. Sam Rimmer sat looking at her as if in a QUANDARY, gently rubbing his hair, that shone again in the sun.
