(see next.) Also 8 quadrill. [a. F. quadrille (1725); referred by Littré to It. quadriglio of the same meaning, but by Hatz.-Darm. said to be ad. Sp. cuartillo, the form in F. being due to association with quadrille, Sp. cuadrilla (see next).] A card-game played by four persons with forty cards, the eights, nines and tens of the ordinary pack being discarded. † Also pl.
Quadrille began to take the place of ombre as the fashionable card game about 1726, and was in turn superseded by whist.
1726. in Suffolk Corr. (1824), I. 257. Sir T. Coke [etc.] … made a party at quadrille … The game being new, drew many spectators.
1727. Swift, On a Woman’s Mind, Misc. 1735, V. 113. Improving hourly in her Skill, To cheat and wrangle at Quadrille.
1768. in Priv. Lett. Ld. Malmesbury, I. 161. I preferred a sober game of quadrilles with Miss Chudleigh.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, etc. I. 22. The petty pleasures of sixpenny quadrille.
1823. Lamb, Elia (1860), 51. Quadrille, she has often told me, was her first love, but whist had engaged her maturer esteem.
1861. T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, xxiii. 198. Amongst the winter evening’s amusements were two forms of quadrille: the old-fashioned game of cards, and the more recently fashionable dance.
attrib. 1731. Fielding, Mod. Husb., I. ii. Bring the Quadrille book hither; see whether I am engaged.
1732. Gay, Distr. Wife, IV. Lady Rampant depends upon your ladyship to make up her quadrille party.
1843. LeFevre, Life Trav. Phys., II. I. xiv. 44. The old Countess sat down to the quadrille table with three other ladies.
