quarry

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a surface excavation for extracting stone or slate

   a British term for `quarry' is `stone pit'

2. 2
   verb

   extract something, for example stones, from or as if from a quarry

   I like to quarry marble in my spare time.

3. 3
   noun

   A site for mining stone, such as limestone, or slate.

   Michelangelo personally quarried marble from the world-famous quarry at Carrara.

4. 4
   verb

   To obtain (or mine) stone by extraction from a quarry.

   The incloſing of this country might alſo be effected, were the landlord to quarry the ſtones, and build the walls at his expence, and the tenant to carry the materials, and pay intereſt for the money advanced by the landlord.

5. 5
   verb

   To extract or slowly obtain by long, tedious searching.

   They quarried out new, interesting facts about ancient Egypt from old papyri.

6. 6
   noun

   A part of the entrails of a hunted animal, given to the hounds as a reward.

   Quarry, among hunters, is ſometimes uſed for part of the viſcera of the beaſt taken; given by way of reward to the hounds.

7. 7
   noun

   An animal, often a bird or mammal, which is hunted.

   Is it not our very Caſe now, that when our Souls, Good-Names, Bodies and Fortunes are at Stake, we muſt be running out at Check, after every Crow, Buzzard, or Jack-daw that comes in the way, and leave the main Chance at laſt at Six and Seven? Nay, and here's this more in't too, that the Quarry would not be worth the taking up neither, if we could Catch it; beſide, that it flies away ſtill before us, and is never to be Overtaken.

8. 8
   noun

   An object of search or pursuit.

   In a verſe, when a worde of three ſillables cannot thruſt in but ſidelings, to joynt him even, we are oftentimes faine to borrowe ſome leſſer quarry of elocution from the Latine, alwaies retaining this for a principle, that a leake of indeſinence , as a leake in a ſhip, muſt needly be ſtopt with what matter ſoever.

Etymology

From Middle English quarere, from Medieval Latin quarreria (1266), literally a “place where stones are squared”, from Old French quarrière (compare modern French carrière), from Vulgar Latin *quadraria, from Latin quadrō (“to square”), itself from quadra (“a square”), from quattuor (“four”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres (“four”).