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Choir vs Quire - What's the difference?

choir | quire |

Quire is a alternative form of choir.



As nouns the difference between choir and quire

is that choir is singing group; group of people who sing together; company of people who are trained to sing together while quire is one-twentieth of a ream of paper; a collection of twenty-four or twenty-five sheets of paper of the same size and quality, unfolded or having a single fold.

As a verb quire is

to prepare quires by stitching together leaves of paper.

choir

English

Alternative forms

* (l) (archaic)

Noun

(wikipedia choir) (en noun)
  • Singing group; group of people who sing together; company of people who are trained to sing together.
  • * , chapter=5
    • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing was pronounced. The choir and the clergy trooped out slowly, […], down the nave to the western door. […] At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced group stopped to say the last prayer.}}
  • The part of a church where the choir assembles for song.
  • * , chapter=5
    • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Here, in the transept and choir , where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.}}
  • (Christian angelology) One of the nine ranks or orders of angels.

    • Derived terms

    * chorister * Nikon choir

    Related terms

    * choral * chorus

    Anagrams

    * * ----

    quire

    English

    Etymology 1

    (Paper quire) From (etyl) quier, from (etyl) quaier, from

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • One-twentieth of a ream of paper; a collection of twenty-four or twenty-five sheets of paper of the same size and quality, unfolded or having a single fold.
  • * 1882 , James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England , Volume 4, p. 592:
    • Under the year 1533 we are told that the ream contained twenty quires .
  • * 1929 , , Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 71:
    • […] and we must accept the fact that all those good novels, Villette'', ''Emma'', ''Wuthering Heights'', ''Middlemarch'', were written by women without more experience of life than could enter the house of a clergyman; written too in the common sitting-room of that respectable house and by women so poor that they could not afford to buy more than a few quires of paper at a time upon which to write ''Wuthering Heights'' or ''Jane Eyre .
  • (bookbinding ) A set of leaves which are stitched together, originally a set of four pieces of paper (eight leaves, sixteen pages). This is most often a single signature (i.e. group of four), but may be several nested signatures.
  • A book, poem, or pamphlet.
    • Coordinate terms
    * (quantity of paper) bale, bundle, ream

    Verb

    (quir)
  • (bookbinding) To prepare quires by stitching together leaves of paper.
  • * 1870 , William White, Notes and Queries , vol. 42:
    • Now, in the first folio volume of 1616, the paging, signatures, and quiring are continuous and regular throughout.
  • * 1938 , The Dolphin: A Journal of the Making of the Books , issue 3:
    • This is a natural point at which to ask why quiring went out of fashion.
  • * 1976 , Alfred William Pollard, Alfred William Pollard: A Selection of his Essays :
    • By means of these smooth pages we can mostly see how the modern binder made up the book, but whether in doing this he followed the original quiring is quite another matter.

    See also

    *

    Etymology 2

    (choir) Older spelling of choir.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (archaic) A choir.
  • * c.1590 , , I.iii:
    • Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her,
    And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds,
    That she will light to listen to the lays,
    And never mount to trouble you again.
  • * Bishop Joseph Hall
    • Yea, and the prophet of the heav'nly lyre, / Great Solomon sings in the English quire
  • The architectural part of a church in which the choir resides, between the nave and the sanctuary.

    • Verb

    (quir)
  • To sing in concert.
  • * c.1598 , , V.i:
    • Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven / Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: / There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st / But in his motion like an angel sings, / Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; / Such harmony is in immortal souls; / But whilst this muddy vesture of decay / Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
  • * 1938 , "
    • He went on down the hill, toward the dark woods within which the liquid silver voices of the birds called unceasing-the rapid and urgent beating of the urgent and quiring heart of the late spring night.
    ----