Quaker /(?)/

Quak·er

Quaker

n.
  1. One who quakes.
  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.
    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.
  3. The nankeen bird. (Zool.)

Phrases & Compounds
Quaker buttons
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
a low American biennial plant (Houstonia cærulea), with pretty four-lobed corollas which are pale blue with a yellowish center; -- also called bluets, and little innocents.