Quake

How to spell quake

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce quake

What does quake mean?

1. verbTo shake or tremble, often from fear, cold, or a powerful force.
2. nounA shaking or tremor, especially an earthquake.

Quake in a sentence

• verb

  The whole building began to quake as the lorries thundered past.

• noun

  The region was rebuilt after the quake flattened most of the city.

• verb

  New recruits often quake with nerves before their first presentation.

• noun

  Insurance premiums rose sharply following the last major quake.

Where does quake come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from Old English cwacian, a native Anglo-Saxon verb meaning 'to tremble' or 'to shake', especially with fear or cold. It was an everyday word long before the Norman Conquest and never needed to be borrowed from Latin or French, which is why it has such a plain, Germanic look. The spelling shifted over the centuries from cwacian to the modern quake, with the old cw- cluster being rewritten as qu- under the influence of French scribal habits, even though the sound stayed the same. By the late medieval period it was also used as a noun for a sudden shaking, and the compound 'earthquake' appears from around the 1300s. The same trembling sense gave the religious group known as the Quakers their nickname, supposedly because they were told to quake at the word of the Lord.

How the word is built

• quake (a single Old English root cwacian meaning 'to tremble'); no prefix or suffix