quailing

Verb (1)

quail (third-person singular simple present quails, present participle quailing, simple past and past participle quailed)

1. (intransitive) To waste away; to fade, to wither.
2. (archaic, transitive) To daunt or frighten (someone).
   • Death dvvels vvithin vs, and if gentle Peace / Diſcend not ſoone, our ſorrovves to ſurceaſe, / Latium (alreadie quaild) vvill be deſtroyd.1594, Robert Garnier, translated by Thomas Kid [i.e., Thomas Kyd], Pompey the Great, His Faire Corneliaes Tragedie: […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Nicholas Ling, published 1595, →OCLC, act I...
3. (intransitive) To lose heart or courage; to be daunted or fearful.
   • Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his blood being up, he was not to be cowed by all the generations of Osborne; rallying instantly, he replied to the bullying look of his father, with another so indicative of resolution and defiance, that the elder man quailed in his turn, and looked...1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “A Quarrel about an Heiress”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 183
4. (intransitive) Of courage, faith, etc.: to slacken, to give way.
   • Therewith his ſturdie corage ſoone was quayd, / And all his ſences were with ſuddein dread diſmayd.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 14, page 108

Verb (2)

quail (third-person singular simple present quails, present participle quailing, simple past and past participle quailed)

1. (obsolete) To curdle or coagulate, as milk does.
   • [Laser is given] to such as haue supped off and drunk quailed milke, that is cluttered within their stomack.1601, Pliny the Elder, translated by Philemon Holland, The Historie of the World: Commonly Called the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus; translated into English by Philemon Holland, London...

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