Word of the Day for Thursday, November 8, 2012

quid \KWID\,
noun:
1. A piece of something to be chewed but not swallowed.
2. One pound sterling.

Julius took the twist, wiped off his mouth with a loose male grin, and crammed a large quid into his cheek.
-- Thomas Wolfe, "O Lost: A Story of the Buried Life"

When he'd lost, he'd chew on his quid and spit in all directions . .
-- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, "Death on the Installment Plan"

Quid is a dialectal variant of the same word in Middle English that leads to cud, the stuff that cows chew.

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