1583. Tarleton, Jests [Halliwell (1844) 132]. [Oliphant, New Eng., ii. 13. The word quip gets a new sense, and is used of words.]
1542. Udal, Erasmus's Apoth., 139. Diogenes, mocking soch quidificall trifles . . . said, Sir Plato, Your table and your cuppe I see very well, but as for your tabletee and your cupitee I see none soche.
1587. Nashe, Greene's Menaphon, Int. And here . . . some desperate quipper will canuaze my proposed comparison.
1591. Lyly, Alex. and Campaspe [Dodsley, Old Plays (Reed), ii. 13]. Why, what's a quip? We great girders call it a short saying of a sharp wit, with a bitter sense in a sweet word.
d.1592. R. Greene [Harl. Misc. viii. 383]. Are you pleasant or peevish that you quip with such briefe girdes.
1594. Shakspeare, Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3. "Oh, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil." Ibid. (1595), Two Gentlemen, iv. 3. Her sudden quips, the least whereof would quell a lover's hopes. As You Like It, v. 4. If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would send me word, he cut it to please himself. This is called the quip modest.
1596. Spenser, Fairy Queen, vi. vii. 44. The more he laughs, and does her closely quip.
1605. Jonson, Chapman, &c., Eastward Ho, iii. 2. Go to, old quipper; forth with thy speech. Ibid. 'Tis a trick rampant—'tis a very quiblyn.
1609. Man in the Moone, sig. cii. A thing repugnant to philosophy, and working miraculous matters, a quillit above nature.
1611. Barry, Ram Alley [Dodsley, Old Plays (Reed), v. 427]. Nay, good sir Throate, forbear your quillets now.
1633. Fletcher, Tamer Tamed, iv. 1. Let her leave her bobs . . . and her quillets, She is as nimble that way as an eel.
1637. Milton, L'Allegro, 27. Quips and cranks and wanton wiles.
1656. Goffe, Careless Shepherdess, Prel. His part has all the wit, For none speakes, carps, and quibbles beside him.
1705. Ward, Hud. Rediv., i. vii. 6. Such frothy quibbles and cunnunders.
1805. A. Scott, Poems, 65. 'The Dutch hae taken Hollan', The other, dark anent the quib, Cry'd, O sic doolfu' sonnets!
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, vi. The Englishman is very petulant and precise about his accommodation at inns, and on the roads; a quiddle about his toast and his chop.
d.1859. Macaulay, Mill on Govt. Quibbling about self-interest and motives . . . is but a poor employment for a grown man.
Quire. See Queer, passim.
Quirk, subs. (old legal: now recognised).—An
evasion; a shift; a
quip (q.v.). Hence quirkist =
shifty; quibbling (B. E., c.1696);
quirks and quilletts = tricks
and devices; quirklum (Jamieson:
'a cant term') = a puzzle;
quirky = sportively tricky.
1538-50. [Ellis, Original Letters]. [Oliphant, New English, i. 508. There is the Celtic quirk, connected with law.]
1600. Shakspeare, Much Ado, ii. 3. Some odd quirks and remnants of wit. Ibid. (1609), Pericles, iv. 6. She has me her quirks, her reasons.
1828. Bee, Living Picture of London, 251. Hear them laying quirkish bets that are to take in the unwary.
Quisby, subs. (old).—An eccentric;
a queer card (q.v.).
1838. Desmond, Stage Struck, 4. That old quisby has certainly contrived to slink out of the house.
Adj. and adv. (common).—Bankrupt; drunk; upset; out-of-sorts; wrong: generic for misadventure.
1887. Punch, 30 July, 45. Arter this things appeared to go quisby.
1888. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, 27. There's bound to be lots on 'em quisby Ibid., 80. Makes me feel quite quisby.
To do quisby, verb. phr. (common).—See quot.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., &c., iii. 219. One morning when we had been doing quisby, that is stopping idle.
