quaker

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 cærulea), with pretty four-lobed corollas which are pale blue with a yellowish center; -- also called bluets, and little innocents. [ 1913 Webster ]