American Dictionary of the English Language

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QUAIL, verb intransitive [Quail, in English, signifies to sink or languish, to curdle, and to crush or quell.]

1. To sink into dejection; to languish; to fail in spirits. [Little used.]

2. To fade; to wither. obsolete

QUAIL, verb intransitive

To curdle; to coagulate; as milk.

QUAIL, verb transitive To crush; to depress; to sink; to subdue. [This orthography is obsolete. The word is now written quell.]

QUAIL, noun

A bird of the genus Tetrao or grouse kind, or according to Latham's arrangement, of the genus Perdix, in which he comprehends the partridge and quail In New England, the name is applied to a peculiar species of the perdix, which is called partridge in the middle states, but it is neither the partridge nor quail of Europe.