QUARTER, the fourth part of any thing, the fractional expression for which is ½.

Quarter, in weights, is generally used to signify the fourth part of an hundredweight avoirdupois, or twenty-eight pounds. Quarter, used as the name of a dry measure, is the fourth part of a ton in weight, or eight bushels.

Quarter, a term in the manège. To work from quarter to quarter, is to ride a horse three times in upon the first of the four lines of a square, then changing your hand, to ride him three times upon the second, and so to the third and fourth, always changing hands, and observing the same order.

Quarters, with respect to the parts of a horse, is employed in various senses. Thus the shoulders and fore-legs are called the fare-quarters, and the hips and hinder-legs the hind-quarters. The quarters of a horse’s foot are the sides of the coffin, comprehending between the toe and the heel; the inner, quarters are those opposite to one another, facing from one foot to the other,, and these are always weaker than the outside quarters, which lie on the external sides of the coffin. False-quarters are a eleft in the horn of a horse’s hoof, extending from the coronet to the shoe. A horse is said to be a quarter· cast when, for any disorder in the coffin, we are obliged to cut one of the quarters of the hoof. , .Quarter, in Astronomy, the fourth part of the moon’s period. Thus, from the new moon to the quadrature is the first quarter; from this to full moon, the second quarter; and so on.

Quarter, in Heraldry, is applied to the parts or members of the first division of a coat that is quartered, or divided into quarters.

Franc Quarter, in Heraldry, is a quarter single or alone, which possesses one-fourth part of the field. It forms one of the honourable ordinaries of a coat.

Quarter of α Skip, that part of a ship’s side which lies towards the stern, or which is comprehended between the aftmost end of the main chains and the sides of the stern, where it is terminated by the quarter-pieces.

QuARTER-Master, an officer whose principal business it is to look after the quarters of the soldiers, their clothing, bread, ammunition, firing, and the like.

QuARTER-Master-General is an important officer in the •army, and should not only be a man of great judgment and experience, but well skilled in geography. His duty is to mark out the marches and encampments of an army; and therefore he should know the country perfectly well, with -its rivers, plains, marshes, woods, mountains, defiles, and passages, nay, even the smallest accident of the ground. Prior to a march, he receives the order and route from the general commanding, and appoints a place for the quartermasters of the army to meet him next morning, with whom he marches to the next camp, where, having viewed the ground, he marks out to the regimental quarter-masters the ground allowed each regiment for their camp; he chooses the head-quarters, and appoints the villages for the generals of the army’s quarters; he appoints a proper place for the encampment of the train of artillery; he conducts foraging parties, as likewise the troops to cover them against assaults, and has a share in regulating the winter-quarters and cantonments. See Army. QuARTER-Sessions, a general court which is held quarterly by the justices of peace of each county.