DCHP-1 Online

quarter

• 1a n. Hist. a quarter of a Spanish dollar.

  See also: dollar   quarter-dollar (def. 1)  

  • 1799  We are told . . . that cut quarter dollars are heavier, and . . . more valuable than round quarters.
  • 1854  . . . the erstwhile consumptive treasury . . . became plethoic with donated yorkers and quarters

• 1b n. a quarter of a Canadian dollar; a twenty-five-cent piece.

  See also: dollar  (def. 2)  quarter-dollar (def. 2)  

  • 1860  [The warm spring sun has the effect of drying up the mud . . . much to the disgust of all respectable boot-blacks, who have reaped a large harvest of quarters during the last winter.]
  • 1897  One would think twice in the east before paying twenty-five cents for a pie, but when you get a genuine pie here with crisp flaky crust, just the kind your mother used to make, you think it cheap at a quarter.
  • 1967  A Queen's University law student's contention that there are no such coins in Canadian law as pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters was rejected yesterday by an amused Ontario Supreme Court Judge.

• 2 † n. Esp. West one quarter of a surveyed section of land, that is, 160 acres, the area of the usual homestead grant in the West.

  See also: quarter-section  

  • 1871  In the survey of any and every township the deficiency or surplus, as the case may be, resulting from the convergance of meridians, shall be set out and allowed in the quarter section on the west boundary, the areas of which shall in the survey be returned accordingly at their actual contents.
  • 1963  Amos had filed on a quarter by the creek, and had a small log shack sheltered against a cut bank. . .

• 3 n. Cdn Football one of the four periods into which a regulation game is divided.

  • 1958  . . . Edmonton never seriously threatened in Ottawa territory until the fourth quarter.