Search Result for "quaker": 
Wordnet 3.0

NOUN (2)

1. a member of the Religious Society of Friends founded by George Fox (the Friends have never called themselves Quakers);
[syn: Friend, Quaker]

2. one who quakes and trembles with (or as with) fear;
[syn: quaker, trembler]


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Quaker \Quak"er\, n. 1. One who quakes. [1913 Webster] 2. One of a religious sect founded by George Fox, of Leicestershire, England, about 1650, -- the members of which call themselves Friends. They were called Quakers, originally, in derision. See Friend, n., 4. [1913 Webster] Fox's teaching was primarily a preaching of repentance . . . The trembling among the listening crowd caused or confirmed the name of Quakers given to the body; men and women sometimes fell down and lay struggling as if for life. --Encyc. Brit. [1913 Webster] 3. (Zool.) (a) The nankeen bird. (b) The sooty albatross. (c) Any grasshopper or locust of the genus Edipoda; -- so called from the quaking noise made during flight. [1913 Webster] Quaker buttons. (Bot.) See Nux vomica. Quaker gun, a dummy cannon made of wood or other material; -- so called because the sect of Friends, or Quakers, hold to the doctrine, of nonresistance. Quaker ladies (Bot.), a low American biennial plant (Houstonia c[ae]rulea), with pretty four-lobed corollas which are pale blue with a yellowish center; -- also called bluets, and little innocents. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Nankeen \Nan*keen"\, n. [So called from its being originally manufactured at Nankin (Nanjing), in China.] [Written also nankin.] 1. A species of cloth, of a firm texture, originally brought from China, made of a species of cotton (Gossypium religiosum) that is naturally of a brownish yellow color quite indestructible and permanent. [1913 Webster] 2. An imitation of this cloth by artificial coloring. [1913 Webster] 3. pl. Trousers made of nankeen. --Ld. Lytton. [1913 Webster] Nankeen bird (Zool.), the Australian night heron (Nycticorax Caledonicus); -- called also quaker. [1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

Quaker n 1: a member of the Religious Society of Friends founded by George Fox (the Friends have never called themselves Quakers) [syn: Friend, Quaker] 2: one who quakes and trembles with (or as with) fear [syn: quaker, trembler]
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

QUAKERS. A sect of Christians. 2. Formerly they were much persecuted on account of their peaceable principles which forbade them to bear arms, and they were denied many rights because they refused to make corporal oath. They are relieved in a great degree from the consequent penalties for refusing to bear arms; and their affirmations are everywhere in the United States, as is believed, taken instead of their oaths.