quartern
Americannoun
noun
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a fourth part of certain weights or measures, such as a peck or a pound
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Also called: quartern loaf.
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a type of loaf 4 inches square, used esp for making sandwiches
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any loaf weighing 1600 g when baked
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Etymology
Origin of quartern
1250–1300; Middle English quartroun, quartron, quartern < Old French quarteron, derivative of quart fourth. See quart 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I asked what the trouble was, and was told the baker had refused to sell his half-quartern loaves under sevenpence, or his quartern loaves under a shilling.
From The Message by H. M. (Henry Matthew) Brock
The price of the quartern loaf rose to sixpence, in place of fivepence; but the wages of labourers on the land rose by nearly 25 per cent., and the demand exceeded the supply.
From The Message by H. M. (Henry Matthew) Brock
I tasted it myself, because the municipality had made a great point of introducing it to the lower classes at twopence per quartern less than the first quality.
From An Englishman in Paris Notes and Recollections by Albert D.
We have seen in some churches piles of fruit and vegetables that would furnish a shop, in addition to sheaves of corn and stacks of quartern loaves.
From England in the Days of Old by William Andrews
This John Bull is hacked to make a Corsican and Yankee holiday, taxed at the bayonet's point, starved on bread at eighteenpence the quartern, and offered up as a sacrifice to a Bourbon "Bumble-head."
From George Cruikshank by W. H. Chesson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
