<P> The current word "quire" derives from OE "quair" or "guaer", from OF "quayer", "cayer", (cf . modern Fr . cahier), from L. quaternum, "by fours", "fourfold". Later, when bookmaking switched to using paper and it became possible to easily stitch 5 to 7 sheets at a time, the association of "quaire" with "four" was quickly lost . </P> <P> In the Middle Ages, a quire (also called a "gathering") was most often formed of 4 folded sheets of vellum or parchment, i.e. 8 leaves, 16 sides . The term "quaternion" (or sometimes quaternum) designates such a quire . A quire made of a single folded sheet (i.e. 2 leaves, 4 sides) is a "bifolium" (plural "bifolia"); a "binion" is a quire of two sheets (i.e. 4 leaves, 8 sides); and a "quinion" is five sheets (10 leaves, 20 sides). This last meaning is preserved in the modern Italian term for quire, quinterno di carta . </P> <P> 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"). These outside quires were known as "cassie quires" (from Fr . cassée, "broken"), or "cording quires" and had only 20 sheets to the quire . The printer William Caslon in a book published in 1770 mentions both 24 - and 25 - sheet quires; he also details printer's wastage, and the sorting and recycling of damaged cassie quires . An 1826 French manual on typography complained that cording quires (usually containing some salvageable paper) from the Netherlands barely contained a single good sheet . </P> <P> It also became the name for any booklet small enough to be made from a single quire of paper . Simon Winchester, in The Surgeon of Crowthorne, cites a specific number, defining quire as "a booklet eight pages thick ." Several European words for quire keep the meaning of "book of paper": Ger . Buch von Papier, Dan . bog papir, Du . bock papier . </P>

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