quail

Etymology 1

From Middle English quaylen, from Middle Dutch queilen, quēlen, from Old Dutch *quelan, from Proto-West Germanic *kwelan, from Proto-Germanic *kwelaną (“to suffer”). Doublet of queal.

verb

1. (intransitive) To waste away; to fade, to wither.
2. (transitive, now rare) To daunt or frighten (someone).
   To tell the truth the prospect rather quailed him – wandering about in the gloomy corridors of a nunnery. 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia: or, Buried Alive: A Novel, London; Boston, Mass.: Faber and Faber; republished in The Avignon Quintet, London: Faber, published 1992, page 358
3. (intransitive) To lose heart or courage; to be daunted or fearful.
   Stouter hearts than a woman's have quailed in this terrible winter. Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger one to lean on; so I have come to you now, with an offer of marriage. 1904, Seymour S. Tibbals, The Puritans or The Captain of Plymouth: A Comic Opera in Three Acts, [Franklin, Oh.]: Seymour S. Tibbals, →OCLC, act II, scene i, page 13
   His colleagues quailed when, in 1986, he first sat on the court as a brash 50-year-old whose experience had been mostly as a combative government lawyer: a justice who, in that sanctum of columns and deep judicial silence, was suddenly firing questions like grapeshot. 20 February 2016, “Obituary: Antonin Scalia: Always right”, in The Economist
4. (intransitive) Of courage, faith, etc.: to slacken, to give way.

Etymology 2

(Coturnix coturnix)]] From Middle English quayle, quaile, quaille, from Anglo-Norman quaille, from Late Latin quaccola (“quail”). (prostitute): So called because the quail was thought to be a very amorous bird.

noun

1. Any of various small game birds of the genera Coturnix, Anurophasis or Perdicula in the Old World family Phasianidae or of the New World family Odontophoridae.
   Quail require little water, so there is no point to putting in a guzzler if there is any permanent water within travel range. 1954, Wildlife Review, numbers 75-83, page 44
2. (uncountable) The meat from this bird eaten as food.
3. (obsolete) A prostitute.
   Her's Agamemnon, an honeſt fellow inough and one that loues quailes, but hee has not ſo much braine as eare-wax, […] c. 1602, William Shakespeare, The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently Expressing the Beginning of their Loues, with the Conceited Wooing of Pandarus, Prince of Licia, London: Imprinted by G[eorge] Eld for R[ichard] Bonian and H[enry] Walley, and are to be sold at the spred Eagle in Paules Church-yeard, ouer against the great North doore, published 1609, →OCLC, act V, scene 1

Etymology 3

From Middle English quaylen, qwaylen, from Old French quaillier, coaillier, from Latin coāgulāre. Doublet of coagulate.

verb

1. (obsolete) To curdle or coagulate, as milk does.
   Laser is given] to such as haue supped off and drunk quailed milke, that is cluttered within their stomack. 1601, Pliny the Elder, translated by Philemon Holland, The Historie of the World: Commonly Called the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus; translated into English by Philemon Holland, London: Printed by Adam Islip, →OCLC