quiver

CEFRB2

/ˈkwɪvə/

verb · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To shake slightly, often because of fear or cold.

  2. 02

    noun

    A slight shaking movement.

Examples

  • In mathematics, a quiver is a directed graph.

  • He's got lots of sales pitches in his quiver.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings
  1. A ready storage location for figurative tools or weapons.

  2. A vulva.

noun

Extra meaning
  1. A container for arrows, crossbow bolts or darts, such as those fired from a bow, crossbow or blowgun.

More examples

In context
  • The quiver was red.

  • Arrows were carried in quiver, called also an arrow case, which served for the magazine, arrows for immediate use were worn in the girdle.

  • Don Pedro: Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The small dog suddenly began to blank with fear when it heard the thunder.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

verb

From Middle English quiver, from Anglo-Norman quivre, from Old Dutch cocare (source of Dutch koker, and cognate to Old English cocer (“quiver, case”)), from Proto-West Germanic *kokar (“container”), said to be from Hunnic, possibly from Proto-Mongolic *kökexür (“leather vessel for liquids”); see there for more. Replaced early modern cocker, the inherited reflex of that West Germanic word. The mathematical sense originated as German Köcher in a 1972 paper by Pierre Gabriel; it was likely chosen because a quiver contains arrows, while a digraph contains directed edges (also called "arrows").