quail.
To waste away; to fade, to wither.
Meaning & usage
To waste away; to fade, to wither.
To daunt or frighten (someone).
To lose heart or courage; to be daunted or fearful.
Of courage, faith, etc.: to slacken, to give way.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English quaylen, from Middle Dutch queilen, quēlen, from Old Dutch *quelan, from Proto-West Germanic *kwelan, from Proto-Germanic *kwelaną (“to suffer”). Doublet of queal.
Any of various small game birds of the genera Coturnix, Anurophasis or Perdicula in the Old World family Phasianidae or of the New World family Odontophoridae.
The meat from this bird eaten as food.
A prostitute.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English quayle, quaile, quaille, from Anglo-Norman quaille, from Late Latin quaccola (“quail”). (prostitute): So called because the quail was thought to be a very amorous bird.
To curdle or coagulate, as milk does.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English quaylen, qwaylen, from Old French quaillier, coaillier, from Latin coāgulāre. Doublet of coagulate.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.