[-LY2.]
1. Every quarter of a year; once in a quarter.
1458. in Sharp, Cov. Myst. (1825), 208. To go with þe wayts to gader their wages quarterly.
1529. Act 21 Hen. VIII., c. 13 § 28. Chaplains … daily or quarterly attending.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xli. (1887), 234. That there were no admission into schooles, but foure times in the yeare quarterly.
a. 1633. Austin, Medit. (1635), 254. They be Times that Quarterly bring us in Revenew for our temporall profit.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 295, ¶ 1. She should have 400l. a Year for Pin-money, which I obliged my self to pay Quarterly.
1878. Jevons, Prim. Pol. Econ., 53. Managers, officers, secretaries, and others, are paid quarterly, or some times half-yearly.
2. Her. In the four divisions of a shield formed by a vertical and a horizontal line drawn through the fess point; usu. with reference to two tinctures, charges, or coats of arms, placed in the diagonally opposite quarters.
c. 1450. Holland, Howlat, 591. He bare quarterly … the armes of the Dowglass.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. clxviii. 192. He bare syluer and sables quarterly.
1592. Wyrley, Armorie, 91. Sir Neal Loring, who fairly Arms put on Quarterly white and red.
1684. Lond. Gaz., No. 1952/4. The Arms of the said Count, being in an Eschutcheon Four Coats quarterly.
1765. H. Walpole, Otranto, iii. (1798), 51. A banner with the arms of Vicenza and Otranto quarterly.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, xviii. A white lion for Mowbray, to be borne quarterly, with three stunted or scrog-bushes for Scrogie.
1893. Cussans, Her. (ed. 3), 168. Their daughter … is entitled to bear both her Father’s and her Mother’s Arms quarterly.
b. With ref. to the division of the shield into quarters, or to blazoning it by quarters. Quarterly-quartered, having one or more quarters divided in four; so quarterly-quartering.
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, V. i. (1611), 238. If they be charged, then I hold it best blazoned quarterly.
1705. Hearne, Collect., 21 Dec. (O.H.S.), I. 136. His Arms, quarte[r]ly parted per Cross.
1709. Strype, Ann. Ref., Introd. i. 8. This [shield] impaled quarterly, 1. The arms of Scotland. 2. The arms of England. The third as the second. The fourth as the first.
1864. Boutell, Her. Hist. & Pop., iii. (ed. 3), 16. The Grand Quarters of which the first and the fourth … are Quarterly-quartered. Ibid., xiv. 142. The Marshalling now proceeds by Quarterly Quartering.
c. ellipt. as adj. = divided quarterly, or (by extension) into any number of parts by lines at right angles to each other, as quarterly of eight; also as sb. = a shield divided or charged quarterly.
1869. W. S. Ellis, Antiq. Her., x. 228. Aubrey de Vere … transmitted his … coat of Quarterly to his descendants.
d. Quarterly-pierced: (see quots.).
1780. Edmondson, Body Her., Gloss. II. Quarterly Pierced, is used to express a square hole in a saltire, a cross millrine, &c. through which aperture the field is seen.
1893. Cussans, Her. (ed. 3), 63. If … that part where the limbs [of the cross] are conjoined be removed, it is termed Quarterly-pierced.
† 3. a. Into four parts. b. At four equidistant points on a circle. c. Through each quarter of a town. Obs. rare.
a. 1576. Gascoigne, Philomene (Arb.), 107. They tore in peces quarterly The corps.
b. 1605. Camden, Rem. (1637), 167. A Wing with these foure letters, F. E. L. D. quarterly about it.
c. a. 1670. Spalding, Troub. (1828), I. 199. The baillies went quarterly about, to cause ilk inhabitant subscrive.
