To Quake. v.n. [cwacan, Saxon.]
- To shake with cold or fear; to tremble.
Dorus threw Pamela behind a tree; where she stood quaking like the partridge on which the hawk is even ready to seize. Sidney, b. i.
If Cupid hath not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this. Shakespeare.
Do such business as the better day
Would quake to look on. Shakesp. Hamlet.Who honours not his father,
Henry the fifth, that made all France to quake,
Shake he his weapon at us, and pass by. Shakesp.The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burnt at his presence. Nah. i. 5.
Son of man eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and carefulness. Ezek. xii. 18.
In fields they dare not fight where honour calls,
The very noise of war their souls does wound,
They quake but hearing their own trumpets sound. Dryden. - To shake; not to be solid or firm.
Next Smedley div'd; slow circles dimpled o'er
The quaking mud, that clos'd and op'd no more. Pope.
