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.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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