quiver
Plural: quivers
Noun
- an almost pleasurable sensation of fright
- a shaky motion
- case for holding arrows
- the act of vibrating
- A container for arrows, crossbow bolts or darts, such as those fired from a bow, crossbow or blowgun.
- A ready storage location for figurative tools or weapons.
- A vulva.
- The collective noun for cobras.
- A multidigraph, especially in the context of representation theory.
Verb
Verb Forms: quivered, quivering, quivers
- To shake with a slight, rapid, trembling motion.
- shake with fast, tremulous movements
- move back and forth very rapidly
- move with or as if with a regular alternating motion
- To shake or move with slight and tremulous motion.
Adj
- Nimble, active.
Examples
- He's got lots of sales pitches in his quiver.
- The Scrabble board seemed to QUIVER with excitement as he laid down his final, game-winning word.
Origin / Etymology
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").
Synonyms
beat, chill, flicker, flitter, flutter, frisson, palpitate, palpitation, pulsate, quake, quivering, shakiness, shaking, shiver, shudder, thrill, tingle, trembling, vibration, waver, tremble
Scrabble Score: 18
quiver: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordquiver: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
quiver: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary