quaker Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a member of the Religious Society of Friends founded by George Fox (the Friends have never called themselves Quakers)
    Friend.
  2. noun one who quakes and trembles with (or as with) fear
    trembler.

WordNet

Quak"er noun
Definitions
  1. One who quakes.
  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.
    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.
  3. (Zoöl.) (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.

Webster 1913