- little innocents
- Quaker Quak"er, n.
1. One who quakes.
[1913 Webster]
2. One of a religious sect founded by George {Fox}, of Leicestershire, England, about 1650, -- the members of which call themselves Friends. They were called Quakers, originally, in derision. See {Friend}, n., 4. [1913 Webster]
Fox's teaching was primarily a preaching of repentance . . . The trembling among the listening crowd caused or confirmed the name of Quakers given to the body; men and women sometimes fell down and lay struggling as if for life. --Encyc. Brit. [1913 Webster]
3. (Zo["o]l.) (a) The nankeen bird. (b) The sooty albatross. (c) Any grasshopper or locust of the genus {Edipoda}; -- so called from the quaking noise made during flight. [1913 Webster]
{Quaker buttons}. (Bot.) See {Nux vomica}.
{Quaker gun}, a dummy cannon made of wood or other material; -- so called because the sect of Friends, or Quakers, hold to the doctrine, of nonresistance.
{Quaker ladies} (Bot.), a low American biennial plant ({Houstonia c[ae]rulea}), with pretty four-lobed corollas which are pale blue with a yellowish center; -- also called {bluets}, and {little innocents}. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English. 2000.
