Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Quaker?

\Quak"er\, n. 1. One who quakes. 2. One of a religious sect founded by George {Fox}, of Leicestershire, England, about 1650, -- the members of which call themselves Friends. They were called Quakers, originally, in derision. See {Friend}, n., 4. Fox's teaching was primarily a preaching of repentance . . . The trembling among the listening crowd caused or confirmed the name of Quakers given to the body; men and women sometimes fell down and lay struggling as if for life. --Encyc. Brit. 3. (Zo["o]l.) (a) The nankeen bird. (b) The sooty albatross. (c) Any grasshopper or locust of the genus ({Edipoda}; -- so called from the quaking noise made during flight. {Quaker buttons}. (Bot.) See {Nux vomica}. {Quaker gun}, a dummy cannon made of wood or other material; -- so called because the sect of Friends, or Quakers, hold to the doctrine, of nonresistance. {Quaker ladies} (Bot.), a low American biennial plant ({Houstonia c[ae]rulea}), with pretty four-lobed corollas which are pale blue with a yellowish center; -- also called {bluets}, and {little innocents}.