The meaning of QUIRE is a collection of 24 or sometimes 25 sheets of paper of the same size and quality : one twentieth of a ream.

Formerly, when paper was packed at the paper mill, the top and bottom quires were made up of slightly damaged sheets ("outsides") to protect the good quires ("insides").

A set of 24 or sometimes 25 sheets of paper of the same size and stock; one twentieth of a ream. 2. A collection of leaves of parchment or paper, folded one within the other, in a manuscript or book.

In medieval manuscripts a gathering, or quire, was most often formed of 4 folded sheets of vellum or parchment, i.e. 8 leaves, 16 sides. Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 …

The divisions of the book made by thus folding sheets of paper are called quires, and may consist of four or eight leaves.

A quire is one-twentieth of a ream, which today means 25 pieces of paper per quire. Originally, each quire contained 24 sheets, a measurement that's still occasionally used for handmade paper. During …

Definition of quire noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

There are four meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun quire, one of which is labelled obsolete. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence. How common is the noun quire? …

Nov 30, 2025 · quire (plural quires) One-twentieth of a ream of paper; a collection of twenty-four or twenty-five sheets of paper of the same size and quality, unfolded or having a single fold. quotations

QUIRE definition: a set of 24 uniform sheets of paper. See examples of quire used in a sentence.