QUID, a small piece of tobacco—one mouthful. Quid est hoc? asked one, tapping the swelled cheek of another; hoc est quid, promptly replied the other, exhibiting at the same time “a chaw” of the weed. Probably a corruption of CUD.
QUIET, “on the QUIET,” clandestinely, so as to avoid observation, “under the rose.”
QUILL-DRIVER, a scrivener, a clerk—satirical phrase similar to STEEL BAR-DRIVER, a tailor.
QUILT, to thrash, or beat.
QUISBY, bankrupt, poverty stricken.—Ho. Words, No. 183.
QUIZ, a prying person, an odd fellow. Oxford slang; lately admitted into dictionaries. Not noticed by Johnson.
QUIZ, to pry, or joke.
QUIZZICAL, jocose, humorous.
QUOCKERWODGER, a wooden toy figure, which, when pulled by a string, jerks its limbs about. The term is used in a slang sense to signify a pseudo-politician, one whose strings of action are pulled by somebody else.—West.
QUOD, a prison, or lock up; QUODDED, put in prison. A slang expression used by Mr. Hughes, in Tom Brown’s Schooldays (Macmillan’s Magazine, January, 1860), throws some light upon the origin of this now very common street term:—“Flogged or whipped in QUAD,” says the delineator of student life, in allusion to chastisement inflicted within the Quadrangle of a college. Quadrangle is the term given to the prison inclosure within which culprits are allowed to walk, and where whippings were formerly inflicted. Quadrangle also represents a building of four sides; and to be “within FOUR WALLS,” or prison, is the frequent slang lamentation of unlucky vagabonds.