quietus

Noun

quietus (usually uncountable, plural quietuses)

1. (dated, usually) A stillness or pause; something that quiets or represses; removal from activity.
   • Olive's specific terrors and dangers had by this time very much blown over; Basil Ransom had given no sign of life for ages, and Henry Burrage had certainly got his quietus before they went to Europe.1885–1886, Henry James, chapter XXX, in The Bostonians […], London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 16 February 1886, →OCLC, 2nd book, page 284
   • The very unromantically accoutred form of a keen-visaged, middle-aged female, padding heavily in bedroom slippers along the garden walk, gave its quietus to the situation.1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC
2. (dated, figuratively, usually) Death.
   • When he himſelfe might his Quietus make / With a bare Bodkin?c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
   • After a good deal of firing, and lying in wait - for every time he heard a shot down he'd go, and on coming to the surface, would only expose about two or three inches of his nose to fire at - we managed to give him his quietus.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 336

   Synonyms:

   demise, fatality, death, end, tomb, celestial transfer, decease, decomposition, defunction, dematerialization

3. (dated, usually) Final settlement (e.g., of a debt).