*** Quid Ridês (Latin) means “Why do you laugh?” Quid rides, i.e. “the tobacconist rides.”
Quidnunc (Abraham), of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, an upholsterer by trade, but bankrupt. His head “runs only on schemes for paying off the National Debt, the balance of power, the affairs of Europe, and the political news of the day.”
*** The prototype of this town politician was the father of Dr. Arne (see The Tatler, No. 155).
Harriet Quidnunc, his daughter, rescued by Belmour from the flames of a burning house, and adored by him.
John Quidnunc, under the assumed name of Rovewell, having married a rich planter’s widow, returns to England, pays his father’s debts, and gives his sister to Mr. Belmour for wife.—Murphy, The Upholsterer (1758).
Quidnuncs, a name given to the ancient members of certain political clubs, who were constantly inquiring, “Quidnunc? What news?”
This the Great Mother dearer held than all
The clubs of Quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall.
Pope, The Dunciad, i. 269 (1728).
Quidnunkis, a monkey which climbed higher than its neighbors, and fell into a river. For a few moments the monkey-race stood panic-struck, but the stream flowed on, and in a minute or two the monkeys continued their gambols as if nothing had happened.—Gay, The Quidnunkis (a fable, 1726).
Quildrive (2 syl.), clerk to old Philpot “the citizen.”—Murphy, The Citizen (1761).
Quilp (Daniel), a hideous dwarf, cunning, malicious, and a perfect master in tormenting. Of hard, forbidding features, with head and face large enough for a giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his mouth and chin bristly with a coarse, hard beard; his face never clean, but always distorted with a ghastly grin, which showed the few discolored fangs that supplied the place of teeth. His dress consisted of a large high-crowned hat, a worn-out dark suit, a pair of most capacious shoes, and a huge crumpled dirty white neck-cloth. Such hair as he had was a grizzled black, cut short but hanging about his ears in fringes. His hands were coarse and dirty; his fingernails crooked, long, and yellow. He lived on Tower Hill, collected rents, advanced money to seamen, and kept a sort of wharf, containing rusty anchors, huge iron rings, piles of rotten wood, and sheets of old copper, calling himself a ship-breaker. He was on the point of being arrested for felony, when he drowned himself.