quartering

quartering is the present participle and gerund of quarter.

Noun

quartering (countable and uncountable, plural quarterings)

A division into four parts.
- Similitude applies to proportional changes, such as doublings, halvings, or quarterings; it does not apply to additive changes.1994, David C. Schneider, Quantitative Ecology: Spatial and Temporal Scaling, page 36
The act of providing housing for military personnel, especially when imposed upon the home of a private citizen.
The method of capital punishment where a criminal is cut into four pieces.
The division of a shield containing different coats of arms into four or more compartments.
One of the different coats of arms arranged upon an escutcheon, denoting the descent of the bearer.
A series of quarters, or small upright posts.
(historical) The practice of docking 15 minutes' pay from a worker who arrived late (even by less than 15 minutes).
Searching for prey by traversing a space. From hunting for game, where dogs will run parallel to the wind in search of a scent, thereby 'quartering' the field.
A point on an arch calculated by measuring one quarter of the height along a line from the peak to the outer edge on the ground.
- The arch failed first at the crown, then at the quarterings, and finally at the springings.1941 February, “Bridge demolition by lifting”, in Railway Magazine, page 74

quartering (not comparable)

Coming from a point well abaft the beam, but not directly astern; said of waves or any moving object.
- Wave direction and frequency (period) are two factors that influence the effect of waves on a moored ship. Whether the ship responds by surging, swaying or yawing will depend on whether the waves are striking the moored vessel head-on, beam-on or quartering, the frequency of the waves and the...2015 November, Duncan Bruce, Tanker Jetty Safety – Management of the Ship/Shore Interface, 1st edition, Witherby Seamanship International, →ISBN, archived from the original on 18 May 2024, 3.1.2
(broadly) Coming from aft and to one side; having both a crosswind and tailwind component.
At right angles, as the cranks of a locomotive, which are in planes forming a right angle with each other.

quarter (third-person singular simple present quarters, present participle quartering, simple past and past participle quartered)

(transitive) To divide into quarters; to divide by four.
(transitive) To provide housing for (usually military personnel or equipment).
- Quarter the horses in the third stable.
(intransitive) To lodge; to have a temporary residence.

Synonyms:

stay over
(transitive) To quartersaw.
- But there is, as in other woods, a great deal of difference between this and the quartered timber.1758, Thomas Hale, A Compleat Body Of Husbandry, page 333
(historical, transitive) To execute (someone) by tying each limb to a different animal (such as a horse) and driving them in different directions.
To display different coats of arms in the quarters of a shield.
- It [the Central London Railway] assumed a modest and entirely heraldic device, quartering the arms of the City of London, the parishes of St. George's, Holborn (St. George and the dragon) and St. Marylebone (the Virgin and Child between two lilies […]), and the county of Middlesex, surmounted by...1950 June, Michael Robbins, “Heraldry of London Underground Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 382

plural	quarterings

By surface analysis, quarter + -ing.

What does quartering mean?: Quartering means a division into four parts.
What is quartering the present participle and gerund of?: Quartering is the present participle and gerund of quarter.
What part of speech is quartering?: Quartering can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of quartering?: The plural of quartering is quarterings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: quartering (page history and authors); quarter (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “quartering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quartering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.