A military dictionary

by William Duane

Q.

QUADRANGLE,		-
QUADRANGULAR,

a square figure having four right angles.

QUADRANT, in gunnery, an instrument made of brass or wood, divided into degrees, and each degree into 10 parts, to lay guns or mortars to any angle of elevation.

The common sort is that whose radii project the quadrant about 12 inches, and whose plummet suspends in its centre, by means of a fine piece of silk; so that, when the long end is introduced into the piece, the plummet shows its elevation.

The best sort has a spiral level fixed to a brass radius; so that, when the long end is introduced into the piece, this radius is turned about its centre till it is level: then its end shews the angle of elevation, or the inclination from the horizon; whereas the first shows that angle from the vertical. See [Level].

QUADRAT, or to quadrat a gun, is to see it duly placed on its carriage, and that the wheels be of an equal height.

QUADRATE, a square, having four equal and parallel sides.

QUADRATICK Equations, are such as retain, on the unknown side, the square of the root, or the number sought.

QUADRATRICE, Fr. See [Quadrant].

QUADRATURE, Fr. Quadrature.

QUADRILATERAL, (Quadrilatére, Fr.) having four sides.

QUADRILLE, Fr. This word is pronounced Cadrille. Small parties of horse, richly caparisoned, &c. which used formerly to ride, &c. in tournaments and at public festivals. The Quadrilles were distinguished from one another by the shape or color of the coats which the riders wore. This word is derived from the Italian Quadriglia, or Squadriglia, being a diminutive of Squadra, a company of soldiers drawn up in a square.

QUADRIVIAL, having four roads or ways, meeting in a point.

QUAI, Fr. See Quay.

QUAICHE, or CAICHE, Fr. A decked vessel, a ketch.

QUAKER-GUNS. See [Passe Volans].

QUALIFICATION. That which makes any person or thing fit for any thing.

To QUALIFY. To fit for any thing. To give in the necessary qualifications for the exercising of a civil or military employment. In a general acceptation of the term, to qualify does not mean to give proofs of mental ability.

QUANTIEME, Fr. a term used among the French to signify, not only the day of the month, as quel quantiéme du mois avons nous? what is the day of the month? but likewise the numerical order in which an individual stands upon a muster-roll, &c. viz. Le quantiéme êtes vous dans votre campagnie? How do you rank in your company? or of what standing are you?

QUANTITY, the amount; bulk; weight; that property of any thing which may be increased or diminished.

QUARANTINE, (Quarantaine, Fr.) The time which persons, suspected of having any contagious disorder, are obliged to remain without mixing with the inhabitants of the seaport or town at which they arrive. It takes its name from quarantaine, the term of 40 days.

QUARRE, Fr. See [Square].

Bataillon Quarre d’hommes, Fr. A square battalion.

QUARREAUX, Fr. Darts or arrows which the bowmen anciently used, and which were so called from the iron at the end being square, with a sharp point.

QUARRELS, in a military sense, are disagreements between individuals of that serious nature, as to produce challenges, duels, &c. by the Articles of War, it is specified, that all officers, of what condition soever, have power to quell all quarrels, frays, and disorders, though the persons concerned should belong to another regiment, troop, or company, and either to order officers into arrest, or non-commissioned officers or soldiers to prison, until their proper superior officers shall be made acquainted therewith; and whosoever shall refuse to obey such officer (though of an inferior rank) or shall draw his sword upon him, shall be punished at the discretion of a general court martial.

QUARREL,		-
QUARRY,

an arrow with a square head.

QUART, Fr. Quarter.

Quart de Cercle, Fr. A quadrant such as bombardiers use when they take the angles, and give what inclination they think necessary to a mortar.

Quart de Conversion, Fr. Quarter-wheeling, or quarter-facing. The terms are used in military evolutions.

Demi-Quart de Conversion, Fr. Half-quarter-wheel.

QUARTE, Fr. In fencing. See [Carte].

QUARTER, in war, signifies the sparing of men’s lives, and giving good treatment to a vanquished enemy. Hence, to give quarter, to take quarter, &c. donner quartier, Fr. prendre quartier, Fr.

To QUARTER UPON. To oblige persons to receive soldiers, &c. into their dwelling houses, and to provide for them.

QUARTERS. Military stations are so called; as head quarters, home quarters, regimental quarters, &c.

QUARTERS, at a siege, the encampment upon one of the most principal passages round a place besieged, to prevent relief and convoys.

Head Quarters of an army, the place where the commander in chief has his quarters. The quarters of generals of horse are, if possible, in villages behind the right and left wings; and the generals of foot are often in the same place: but the commander in chief should be near the centre of the army.

Quarters of refreshment, the place or places where troops that have been much harrassed are put to recover themselves, during some part of the campaign.

Quarter of assembly, the place where the troops meet to march from in a body, and is the same as the place of rendezvous.

Intrenched Quarters, a place fortified with a ditch and parapet to secure a body of troops.

Winter Quarters, sometimes means the space of time included between leaving the camp and taking the field; but more properly the places where the troops are quartered during the winter.

The first business, after the army is in winter quarters, is to form the chain of troops to cover the quarters well: which is done either behind a river, under cover of a range of strong posts, or under the protection of fortified towns. Hussars are very useful on this service.

It should be observed, as an invariable maxim, in winter quarters, that your regiments be disposed in brigades, to be always under the eye of a general officer; and, if possible, let the regiments be so distributed, as to be each under the command of its own chief.

In Quarters. Within the limits prescribed.

Out of Quarters. Beyond the limits prescribed. Officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers who sleep out of quarters, without leave, are liable to be tried by a general or regimental court martial, according to the rank they severally hold.

Quarter-master, is an officer, whose principal business is to look after the quarters of the soldiers, their clothing, bread, ammunition, firing, &c. Every regiment of foot, and artillery, has a quarter-master, and every troop of horse one.

Quarter-master-general, is a considerable officer in the British army, and should be a man of great judgment and experience, and well skilled in geography: his duty is to mark the marches, and encampments of an army: he should know the country perfectly well, with its rivers, plains, marshes, woods, mountains, defiles, passages, &c. even to the smallest brook. Prior to a march he receives the orders and route from the commanding general, and appoints a place for the quarter-masters of the army to meet him next morning, with whom he marches to the next camp, where after having viewed the ground, he marks out to the regimental quarter-masters the space allowed each regiment for their camp: he chuses the head quarters, and appoints the villages for the generals of the army’s quarters: he appoints a proper place for the encampment of the train of artillery: he conducts foraging parties, as likewise the troops to cover them against assaults, and has a share in regulating the winter quarters and cantonments.

Quarter staff, an old military weapon, made of strong even wood, bigger and heavier than a pike: it is 6¹⁄₂ feet long between the ferrules that keep fast the two pikes of iron stuck into the ends of the staff.

Quarter, in the manége, as to work from quarter to quarter, is to ride a horse three times in upon the first of the four lines of a square; then, changing your hand, to ride him three times upon the second; and so to the third and fourth; always changing hands, and observing the same order.

Quarter-facing, is in the new discipline substituted for the old aukward oblique marching; it is also called the line of science; in ranks every man turns to the right or left as ordered, and if ordered to march, the lines or ranks thus keep parallel to their former front, but march on a line oblique to it.

Quarter-Wheeling, in the old discipline, was the motion by which the front of a body of men was turned round to where the flank stood, by taking a quarter of a circle; but in the new discipline which reduces all principles to the strictest simplicity, the wheelings take all their proportions from half a circle; and for obvious causes, since the wheeling of any number of men on a whole circle, would be only moving them to bring them into the place in which they stood before they were wheeled or moved; now the purpose of wheeling is to change from one position to some other required position, and hence quarter wheeling means a quarter wheel of half a circle; thus wheeling about, is changing the front to the rear; and this wheeling is simply half the half circle, or placing the ranks on the same line from which they were moved; the quarter wheel is a movement of ¹⁄₄ of the half circle, or in a line oblique to the line from which they were moved; a regiment quarter wheeled by companies display the regiment in echellon.

Quartering troops, is to provide them with quarters.

QUARTERON, one, Fr. A quarteron; one born of a white man and a mulatto woman, or of a mulatto man and a white woman.

QUARTIER, Fr. For its general acceptation see [Quarters].

Quartier d’un Siége, Fr. A station taken, or an encampment made in one of the leading avenues to a besieging town or place. When the Quartier d’un Siége was commanded by a general officer, during the French monarchy, it was called Quartier du Roi. The king’s quarters.

Quartier des Vivres, Fr. The park of stores, provisions, &c.

Quartier d’Hiver, Fr. Winter quarters. Count de Turpin has written largely upon this subject. See Essai sur l’Art de la Guerre; likewise, Suite de la Science de la Guerre, tom. iv. p. 170.

Quartier de Rafraîchissemens, Fr. Those places are so called in which troops are permitted to halt and take up their quarters for any period, during a campaign.

Quartier de Fourrage, Fr. Foraging quarters. When the active operations of a campaign are necessarily interrupted by the inclemency of the season, means are adopted to lessen the heavy expences of winter quarters, by remaining a certain time in foraging quarters. A wise general will take care to live as long as he can upon his enemy’s country, in order to draw as little as possible from his own.

Quartier du Roi, ou du Général, Fr. Head quarters, or the spot where the king or the commander in chief resides. When an army takes up its ground in low marshy places, &c. the royal or head quarters are marked out in the most advantageous manner, so as to have the king’s or general’s person secure. When an army went into action or stood in battle array, it was customary, among the French, to say, Le Quartier du Roi est partout. The king’s station is every where. Nevertheless, it was always judged prudent, not to expose the royal person or the commander in chief too much. On this principle, head quarters were always established in a place which was surrounded by the best troops, and was supported by epaulements on the right and left, with the addition of a rear guard. Since the revolution, these arrangements have been much changed. It cannot, however, be uninteresting to give a general outline of what was practised during the monarchy. The Quartier du Roi or head quarters, when a town was besieged, were always fixed out of the reach of ordnance, and in a village that was well secured by entrenchments. Before the cannonade commenced, it was usual for the besieged to ascertain the exact station of head quarters, that their fire might not be directed towards them; nor did the real assault of the town take place from that direction. Wherever the king, or, in his absence, the commander in chief took up his quarters, the camp assumed its name from that particular spot or village.

Quartier géneral de la tranchée, Fr. Head quarters or principal station of the trenches. That spot is so called in which the commanding officer of the trenches takes post, and to which all reports of progress, &c. are, from time to time, conveyed. When the siege is somewhat advanced, it is usual to fix this quarters, near the outlet of the last parallel which leads to the head of the saps, in the principal line of attack.

Quartier d’Assemblee, Fr. The ground on which troops assemble to commence their military routes, or to be otherwise prepared for active operations.

Un Quartier bien Retranche, Fr. A quarter that is well entrenched.

Un Quartier Enleve, Fr. Quarters taken possession of by force.

Officiers de Quartier, Fr. Officers who were upon duty for three months, or during the space of one quarter of a year. This term was used in the old French service, to distinguish such officers from those who did duty throughout the year.

Etre de Quartier, Fr. To be upon duty for three months.

Quartier Generaux, Fr. General head quarters.

Quartier-Maitre, Fr. Quarter-master. This term, with respect to foreign troops, corresponds with maréchal des logis in a French infantry corps.

Quartier-Mestre General, Fr. Quarter-master-general. Among other armies the same as marechal général des Logis in the old French service. There is a quarter-master-general in the Turkish service, whose immediate duty is to mark out the ground of encampment, the instant he has received orders to that purpose from the grand vizir, or, in his absence, from the seraskier, who is the general in ordinary, and who is always with the army, whether the grand vizir be present or not.

QUATRE, Fr. Four.

To QUELL. To crush, to subdue. Military force is sometimes resorted to by the civil magistracy to quell riots, &c. In England, the riot act must be read by a justice of the peace, and if the rioters or insurgents do not disperse, the magistrate may order the officer to do his duty, by firing, &c. upon them. When military law has been proclaimed, there is not any necessity for this preliminary caution.

QUERELLES, Fr. quarrels, feuds, &c.

QUERELLE d’Allemand, Fr. An expression used among the French, to signify a drunken quarrel.

QUERRY. See [Equerry],

QUEUE. From the French, which signifies tail; an appendage that every British soldier is directed to wear in lieu of a club. Regimental tails were ordered to be nine inches long.

QUEUE D’ARONDE, a corruption of Queue d’Yronde. It signifies a piece of wood which is so made that it resembles at each end a swallow’s tail.

Queue d’Yronde, ou d’Yrondelle, Fr. See [Swallow’s Tail].

Queue du Camp, Fr. Literally means the tail or extremity of the camp. It is the line which is drawn in the rear of the camp, and which is directly opposite to the one in front, called the head of the camp.

Queue de Paon, Fr. Literally means a peacock’s tail. It is used in architecture, to signify the different compartments or spaces which, in a circular figure, spread gradually from the centre to the circumference.

Queue à Queue, Fr. one after another.

Etre à la Queue, Fr. To be behind, or in the rear.

Avoir l’ennemi en Queue, Fr. To have the enemy close at your heels.

To go in QUEST of an enemy. To send out vedettes, patroles, &c. for the purpose of ascertaining an enemy’s motions.

QUIBERON, or Quibron. A small peninsula of France, in Bretagne, in the bishoprick of Vannes, and to the north of Belleisle; as also a small island called the point of Quiberon, separated from the peninsula by a channel, and the sea next it is called the bay of Quiberon. This spot has been rendered remarkable by the expedition which took place in June, 1795. Upwards of 3000 regular troops (composed mostly of French emigrants that had served abroad, with the ill judged addition of some French prisoners, taken out of English gaols) were landed upon the coast. This force was intended as a co-operation with the insurgents of La Vendee, and was afterwards to have been increased by the descent of an English army, under the command of the earl of Moira; who had, indeed, already been instructed to detach a covering body for that purpose; but the British did not land, having been driven from the French coast by stress of weather. The French emigrants were all sacrificed.

QUICK, with celerity. It forms the cautionary part of a word of command when troops are ordered to move in quick time; as quick-march.

QUICK-Step, or Quick-Time, is 100 steps of 24 inches each, or 200 feet in a minute, and is the step used in all marchings but guard marching and reviews, when the slow march may be used.

QUICKEST-Step, or Quickest-Time, is 120 steps of 24 inches each, or 240 feet in a minute. In this step, all wheelings are performed, as also the doublings up of divisions, and their increase or diminution in front.

QUICK-match, in laboratory-works. See [Laboratory].

QUIETISM. Apathy. Indifference.

QUIETISME, Fr. The state of those persons who did not take an active part in the French revolution.

QUIETISTE, Fr. A man who did not meddle with the revolution.

QUILTING grape-shot, in gunnery. See [Laboratory], and [To Make Grape-Shot].

QUINQUANGULAR. Having five corners or angles.

QUINTAIN,		-
QUINTIN,

An instrument used in the ancient practice of tilting. It consisted of an upright post, on the top of which a cross post turned upon a pivot; at one end of the cross-post was a broad board, and at the other a bag of sand. The practice was to ride against the board with a lance, and at such speed, as to pass by before the sand-bag could strike the tilter on the back.

QUINTAL, Fr. one hundred weight. The Quintal varies in different places, according as the pound consists of more or fewer ounces. The English Quintal is 112 pounds, and is divided into quarters.

QUINTE, Fr. a low thrust in fencing, delivered at the outside of the position, with the nails turned up, as in low carte. When this thrust is forced over the blade from the guard in carte, it is termed flanconade.

QUINTUPLE. Five fold.

QUIRITES. In ancient Rome, the common citizens were so called, as distinguished from the soldiery.

To QUIT, to leave, to abandon. This word is variously used in military phraseology, viz.

To Quit your post,		-
To Quit your ranks,

To retire, without having received any previous order for that purpose, from a station entrusted to your care. Any officer or soldier, who, during the heat of an engagement, shall quit his ranks, may be shot, or otherwise dispatched upon the spot. A sentry who quits his post before he is regularly relieved, is ordered to suffer death, or such other punishment as may be inflicted by a general court-martial.

Quit your arms. A word of command which was formerly given in infantry regiments, but is now laid aside.

QUITTANCE, Fr. receipt, acquittance.

Quittance de finance, Fr. A term formerly used among the French, to express any sum paid into the king’s treasury, for an appointment or place.

QUITTER, Fr. to quit.

Quitter l’epée, Fr. Figuratively to leave the profession of arms.

QUIVER. A case for arrows.

QUI vive?		-
Qui va là?
Qui est là?

Fr. Who comes there? terms used by the French sentries when they challenge.

Etre sur le Qui vive, Fr. To be upon the alert.

QUILLON, Fr. the cross-bar of the hilt of a sword

A QUIZ. This cant word is frequently used as a substantive to describe a strange, out of the way character. It is a term of ridicule.

To Quiz. A cant word much in use among fashionable bucks or blades, as certain creatures are called. It signifies to turn another into ridicule, by some allusion to his dress or manners, some ironical word or quaint expression. In other terms, to take unwarrantable liberties with the natural defects, or harmless habits of unoffending individuals. This absurd and childish practice, (which grows out of ignorance, is supported by privileged assumption, and ought to be discouraged by every sensible man) has sometimes found its way into the British army. We need scarcely add, that it has frequently been the cause of the most serious quarrels, and is always contrary to good order and discipline. Commanding officers should, on all occasions, exert their authority, whenever there appears the least tendency to this unmanly, unofficer like, and ungentleman like custom. It ought constantly to be remembered, that the influence of evil is much stronger upon the commonality of mankind, than that of good. If an officer suffer himself to be quizzed by a brother officer, he will, by degrees, become ridiculous to the soldiers; and if he resent it, as he ought to do in primo limine, by a manly explanation with the weak fool who attempts to be witty, without possessing one spark of real wit, it is more than probable, that much ill blood will be engendered between them. The British Articles of War have, in some degree, provided against this evil. It is there specifically stated, that no officer, non-commissioned officer, or soldier, shall use any reproachful or provoking speeches or gestures to another, upon pain, if an officer, of being put in arrest (or if a non-commissioned officer, or a soldier, of being imprisoned) and of asking pardon of the party offended, in the presence of his commanding officer.

A QUIZZER. A creature, who without possessing any real wit or humor, affects to turn others into ridicule, by an insolent affectation of the talent. The thing is generally found among those calling themselves fashionable young men, which, (to use a very apposite expression) has more money than wit, plumes itself upon wealth or connexion, and endeavors to make up by noise, turbulence, and privileged contradiction, what it wants in real knowlege and solid understanding. It is sometimes seen at a military mess, and about the purlieus of taverns and gaming tables.

QUOIL, in gunnery, a rope laid round in a ring, one turn over another.

QUOINS, in architecture, denote the corners of brick or stone walls.

QUOIN, (Coin, Fr.) a wedge used to lay under the breech of a gun, to raise or depress the metal.

QUOIT, the ancient discus—an Olympic game, still practised in all parts of the world. It consists in throwing a large iron ring to a considerable distance, at a wooden peg, driven into the ground.

QUOTIENT. In arithmetic, the number resulting from the division of a greater number by a smaller, and which shews how often the smaller, or the divisor, is contained in the greater or dividend.