Forms: α. 5 quarre-, qwari-, qvary-, querrour, Sc. quereour, 5–6 quarriour. β. quaryere, 6 quarryer, 7– quarrier. [a. OF. quarreour, -ieur, quarrier (mod.F. carrier), agent-n. to quarrer (mod.F. carrer):—L. quadrāre to square (stones): cf. late L. quadrātor, quadrātārius, in same sense, and see QUARRY sb.2] One who quarries stone; a quarryman.

1

  α.  c. 1375.  Sc. Leg. Saints, xxiii. (Seven Sleepers), 212. Quereouris gadryt sone stanis to wyne.

2

c. 1400.  Destr. Troy, 1531. Masons full mony;… qwariours qweme.

3

1424.  E. E. Wills, 59. Paied to Fairchild, quarriour, xiijs. and iiijd. for freestone.

4

1483.  Cath. Angl., 296/2. A Qvaryour, lapidicius.

5

1590.  Serpent of Devis., C iij. There was found by quarriours … a rich tombe of stone.

6

  β.  c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 419/1. Quaryere, lapidicidius.

7

1500–18.  Acc. Louth Steeple, in Archæologia, X. 71. William Bennet, quarryer.

8

1610.  Holland, Camden’s Brit., I. 531. A certaine number of workmen, as masons and Quarriers.

9

1673.  Ray, Journ. Low C., 57. Pillars and Galleries made by Quarriers.

10

1811.  Pinkerton, Petral., I. 498. Where the gypsum once bore a prismatic form, now destroyed by the progress of the quarriers.

11

1876.  T. Hardy, Ethelberta, xxxi. Everybody in the parish who was not a boatman was a quarrier.

12

  fig.  1825.  Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 274. He was the quarrier, and architect, and builder-up of his own greatness.

13