quitch

present singular third person quitches · participle present quitching · participle past quitched · past quitched · alternative quich · alternative queach · alternative queatch · alternative quinch · alternative quetch · alternative queck

1. obsoletetransitiveTo shake (something); to stir, move.First known use 8th–13th c.
2. UKintransitiveregionalTo stir; to move.First known use 13th c.

   With a strong yron chaine and coller bound, / That once he could not move, nor quich at all […].

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

3. intransitiveTo flinch; shrink.

alternative obsolete quich

1. uncountableElymus repens, couch grass (a species of grass, often considered a weed)

   we found the bones and ashes half mortered unto the sand and sides of the Urne; and some long roots of Quich, or Dogs-grass wreathed about the bones.

   1658, Sir Thomas Browne, Urne-Burial, Penguin, published 2005, page 21

   Synonyms: couch grass, quackgrass