• (America, RP) IPA: /kweɪk/

quake (plural quakes)

1. A trembling or shaking.

   We felt a quake in the apartment every time the train went by.

2. An earthquake, a trembling of the ground with force.

   California is plagued by quakes; there are a few minor ones almost every month.

quake (quakes, present participle quaking; past and past participle quaked)

1. (intransitive) To tremble or shake.

   I felt the ground quaking beneath my feet.

   • 1575-86, Sir Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

     Dorus threw Pamela behind a tree; where she stood quaking like the partridge on which the hawk is even ready to seize.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Nahum 1:5 ↗:

     The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burnt at his presence.

2. (intransitive, figurative) To be in a state of fear, shock, amazement, etc., such as might cause one to tremble.
   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter III, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384 ↗:

     Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

   • 1598-99, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act I, Scene I

     If Cupid have not spent all his quiver in / Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

   • 1599-1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene II

     Now could I drink hot blood / And do such bitter business as the bitter day / Would quake to look on.

   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 2, Act IV, Scene VIII

     Who honours not his father, Henry the fifth, that made all France to quake, Shake he his weapon at us, and pass by.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Ezekiel 12:18 ↗:

     Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and carefulness.

• Italian: tremare

1. The 99th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.