quiver

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To shake with small, rapid, trembling movements.

   Her lip quivered as she tried to hold back tears.

2. 2
   noun

   A slight, trembling movement.

   There was a quiver of excitement in his voice.

3. 3
   noun

   A case for carrying arrows.

   The archer pulled another arrow from his quiver.

From Middle English quiver, from Anglo-Norman quivre, from Old Dutch cocare (source of Dutch koker, and cognate to Old English cocer (“quiver, case”)), from Proto-West Germanic *kokar (“container”), said to be from Hunnic, possibly from Proto-Mongolic *kökexür (“leather vessel for liquids”); see there for more. Replaced early modern cocker, the inherited reflex of that West Germanic word. The mathematical sense originated as German Köcher in a 1972 paper by Pierre Gabriel; it was likely chosen because a quiver contains arrows, while a digraph contains directed edges (also called "arrows").

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