Quailing

//ˈkweɪlɪŋ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of one who quails, or draws back in fear.

    "[…] the old man, who had never before known the quailings of fear, was loath in such a tremendous gale to rush, as he considered on certain death."

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of quail form-of, gerund, participle, present

Synonyms

All synonyms
averseskulkingslinkysneakingsneakytimorous

Example

More examples

"[…] the old man, who had never before known the quailings of fear, was loath in such a tremendous gale to rush, as he considered on certain death."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.