quare adj.
1. odd, eccentric, ‘queer’.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Belfast News-Letter 2 Jan. 4/2: ‘That’s a quare question for your honour to be after axing me’. | |
 | Clonmel Herald 13 May 4/3: ‘I had the devil’s quare adventure after I left you last night’. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Legends and Stories 40: Sure the sojer thought it was a quare throut that couldn’t be briled. | |
| Handy Andy 27: Oh, my heavens! but that’s a quare thing, Misther Dick, sir. | |
| Knocknagow 129: ‘They’re quare times,’ said Mr. Beresford Pender. | |
| Hartlepool Northern Dly Mail 24 Feb. 2/6: ‘Indeed, he’s a quare man altogether [...] and it isn’t worth our while to be bothering with the likes of him’. | |
| Snake’s Pass 19: He was so much mulvathered at the Shnake presumin’ to sthay, [...] that for a while he didn’t think it quare that he could shpake at all. | |
| ‘Peter Fagan’s Veiled Bride’ in Weekly Freeman 17 Mar. (1970) 15: People do be talkin’ an’ sayin’ quare things. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | My Lady of the Chimney Corner 53: He looked aghast and said, ‘How quare!’. | |
| Islanders (1933) 188: Amn’t I the quare wan to be staggerin’ like this. | |
| News (Frederick, MD) 3 Sept. 11/2: ‘That’s a queer little customer yonder in the gray suit.’ ‘Quare is the word, mister’. | |
| At Swim-Two-Birds 103: That’s a quare one! | |
| Best of Myles (1968) 58: That’s a quare one. | |
| Quare Fellow (1960) Act II: If you would only [...] change over to a friendly subject of mutual interest – like the quare fellow that’s to be topped in the morning. | |
| Brendan Behan’s Island (1984) 111: granny grunt and chorus (sings): [...] With you he was a quare one, fol-de-do and g’ ou’ a that, / He was a quare one , I tell you. | |
| Down All the Days 140: Isn’t life and death quare, all the same? | |
| Thief of a Christmas in Plays: 2 (1993) Act I: I seen the quarest couple. | |
| Sudden Times 242: That’s a quare one. Isn’t it, Ollie? |
2. good, excellent; also as general intensifier, e.g. quare few, a fair few.
| Belfast Commercial Chron. 15 Dec. 4/2: Irishman — Be the powers, but that old Virginy, with his cock eye, must be a quare man never to tire. | |
| N.Y. Morn. Express 21 Jan. 7/1: [He] said that he had always been a ‘quare’ man until this morning, when he got drunk and took to the cross. | |
| Royal Cornwall Gaz. 12 Apr. 7/6: The man looked at him [...] in great amazement, and then said, ‘ch shure yer a quare man for a minister’. | |
| Knocknagow 379: But somehow his drollery had quite deserted him; and not a single ‘quare thing’ could he remember, that would convince Bessy Morris that he [...] was the rollickingest, rovingest blade in all Tipperary. | |
| Mixed Marriage Act I: A don’t like Hughie goin’ after Papishes. He knows a quare lock of them. | |
| Islanders 98: A quare ould grin he had on him, an’ be me sowl, Biddy, nobody noticed any huff on yerself. | |
| Back to Ballygullion 174: There’s a quare horse-power in that wee engine behind us, judging from the skelly I got at her. | |
| Whistle in the Dark Act I: The quare one should be waiting this hour. | |
| Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 70: Me mother and me granny let out a quare few shouts in their day over shoes and boots. | |
| Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Quare (n): contrary to popular belief this does not mean queer or strange but great. |
3. see queer adj. (1)
In compounds
(Irish) an attractive, sexy girl.
| Braywatch 245: ‘A gang of quare ones came into the amusements last night. They were mad posh, like. Started talking to us. |
1. hell.
| Down All the Days 95: I hope you’re with God in heaven tonight, but I know in me heart it’s down in the quare place you are with a red-hot poker up your arse and you screaming for mercy and finding none! |
2. somewhere unpleasant.
| A Picture of Paradise in McGuinness Dazzling Dark (1996) Act I: God knows you were never done telling them in the quare place. |
(Irish) constr. with the, illicitly distilled whisky, poteen.
| In Praise of Poteen 118: Tourists seeking Irish souvenirs are not infrequently sold rot gut and told that it’s ‘a drop of the quare stuff’. |
(Irish) constr. with the, an act of sexual intercourse.
| Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant (1978) Scene vii: And none of them in later times did the quare thing to the huncyback girl in Clonshee, before they had to marry the horse-faced one for Ballinasloe side! |
In phrases
(Ulster) a general expression of disbelief.
| Introduction to Chasing Danny 🌐 His amazing narrative voice carries his stories’ dramatic arcs, characters, and dialog about fathers in ‘Quare Man, M’ Da’. | |
| ‘Quare Man, M’ Da’ in Chasing Danny. |