a. and sb. [a. ppl. stem of L. quiēscĕre to QUIESCE. So mod.F. quiescent.] A. adj.

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  1.  Motionless, inactive, at rest.

2

1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 190. The active or moving side … the weaker or more quiescent part.

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1710.  Berkeley, Princ. Hum. Knowl., § 114. A man in a ship may be said to be quiescent with relation to the sides of the vessel.

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1753.  Chambers, Cycl., Suppl. App. s.v. Force, The pressure of the quiescent body against the obstacle that hinders it to move.

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1812.  Woodhouse, Astron., i. 3. The pole, which is the place of a quiescent star.

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1874.  Lubbock, Orig. & Met. Ins., iv. 63. The quiescent and death-like condition of the pupa.

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  † b.  Quiescent reason, the fallacy of sorites.

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1656.  Stanley, Hist. Philos., VIII. (I.) xxxii. Sorites … is called also ἡσυχάζων λογὸς, the quiescent reason, because the way to withstand it, is by stopping, and withholding the assent.

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  2.  Of a letter: Not sounded, silent; spec. in Hebrew grammar (see QUIESCE v. 2). Quiescent verb: (see quot. 1853).

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1609.  C. Butler, Fem. Mon. (1634), p. iv. The E silent or quiescent, which yieldeth no sound.

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1711.  J. Greenwood, Eng. Gram., 301. Other Letters … are quiescent or silent.

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1807.  G. Chalmers, Caledonia, I. I. iv. 160. The Irish Raths have the same origin, the (th) being quiescent.

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1807.  Hurwitz, Elem. Heb. Lang., 101. According to the system of reading by points, the letters [Hebrew] are in many instances quiescent.

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1853.  J. R. Wolf, Practical Heb. Gram., 111. Quiescent verbs are those in which one of the feeble letters [Hebrew] occurs as a radical letter.

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  b.  Of a person: Silent, not speaking. rare.

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1791.  Boswell, Johnson, an. 1784. 17 May, Johnson was very quiescent to-day.

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  B.  sb. 1. A quiescent letter.

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1727.  in Bailey, vol. II.

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1807.  Hurwitz, Elem. Heb. Lang., 134. Whenever a letter is written and not pronounced, it is called by Hebrew Grammarians … an invisible quiescent, or a mute.

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1831.  Lee, Hebr. Gram. (1832), 36. The … letters, considered either as consonants or quiescents, will occasionally be changed for one another.

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1882–3.  F. Brown, in Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., I. 583/1. The weaker Shemitic gutturals and the quiescents.

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  2.  A quiescent verb (see 2 above).

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1831.  Lee, Hebr. Gram. (1832), 222. We do not think it necessary here to divide these verbs into Defectives and Quiescents as has usually been done.

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