WordWeight : Weighing the Words

Pronunciation : Quak"er
Part of Speech : n.
Definition : 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?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?rulea), with pretty four-lobed corollas which are pale blue with a yellowish center; -- also called bluets, and little innocents.
Source : Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913