overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

quiver.

A container for arrows, crossbow bolts or darts, such as those fired from a bow, crossbow or blowgun.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkwɪvə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkwɪvɚ/Canada, General-American
  1. A container for arrows, crossbow bolts or darts, such as those fired from a bow, crossbow or blowgun.

  2. A ready storage location for figurative tools or weapons.

    figuratively
    He's got lots of sales pitches in his quiver.
  3. A vulva.

    obsolete
  4. The collective noun for cobras.

    obsolete
  5. A multidigraph, especially in the context of representation theory.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English quiver, from Anglo-Norman quivre, from Old Dutch cocare (source of Dutch koker, and cognate to Old English cocer (“quiver, case”)), from Proto-West Germanic *kokar (“container”), said to be from Hunnic, possibly from Proto-Mongolic *kökexür (“leather vessel for liquids”); see there for more. Replaced early modern cocker, the inherited reflex of that West Germanic word. The mathematical sense originated as German Köcher in a 1972 paper by Pierre Gabriel; it was likely chosen because a quiver contains arrows, while a digraph contains directed edges (also called "arrows").

adj/ˈkwɪvə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkwɪvɚ/Canada, General-American
  1. Nimble, active.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Middle English quiver, cwiver, from Old English *cwifer, probably related to cwic (“alive”).

verb/ˈkwɪvə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkwɪvɚ/Canada, General-American
  1. To shake or move with slight and tremulous motion.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English quiveren, probably from the adjective.

noun/ˈkwɪvə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkwɪvɚ/Canada, General-American
  1. The act of quivering.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English quiveren, probably from the adjective.

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

quiver has 6 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

quiver studioquiver workshello, quiver

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

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.