quitch

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kwɪtʃ/

Etymology 1

From Middle English quicchen, quytchen, quecchen, from Old English cweċċan (“to shake, swing, move, vibrate, shake off, give up”), from Proto-Germanic *kwakjaną (“to shake, swing”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷog- (“to shake, swing”). Related to Old English cwacian (“to quake”). More at quake.

Alternative forms

• quich, queach, queatch, quinch, quetch, queck

Verb

quitch (third-person singular simple present quitches, present participle quitching, simple past and past participle quitched)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To shake (something); to stir, move. [8th-13th c.]
2. (intransitive, now Britain, regional) To stir; to move. [from 13th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, V.9:

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

3. (intransitive) To flinch; shrink.

Etymology 2

From Middle English quicche, from Old English cwice. Cognate with German Quecke, Dutch kweek, Middle Low German kweke.

Alternative forms

• quich (obsolete)

Noun

quitch (uncountable)

1. Elymus repens, couch grass (a species of grass, often considered a weed)
   • 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, Urne-Burial, Penguin 2005, p. 21:

     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.

Derived terms

• (plant): couch, couch-grass

Translations

couch grass — see couch grass