quarteusn.
A French word from the source ( Somme le Roi) translated in Ayenbite misleadingly printed as part of the English text by R. Morris in his edition of 1866.Middle Frenchquarteus is apparently a scribal error for cerceaus hoop (see cerceaus n.), which itself appears in the source a few lines below. Dan Michel, the author of Ayenbite, was clearly puzzled by both words, and left a blank space in the English text at each point (a practice he employs elsewhere) carefully transcribing the French words in the margin with an insertion sign, presumably intending that a suitable English gloss be inserted in the blank space once the meaning of the French words had been ascertained (see further P. Gradon Dan Michel's Ayenbite of Inwyt (1979) 9).
Π
1340 Ayenbite (1866) 159 And yef þe onderstondigge is wrong, oþer yef huy tuysteþ oþer wyþwent ayen, ase deþ þe — [Fr. quarteus], al þe inwyt ssel by þiestre and þe hieap of uirtues.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2007; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1340