Paper quire
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A quire of paper is used as a measure of paper quantity. The usual meaning today is a set of 24 or 25 sheets of paper of the same size and quality. It might also be thought of as 1/20 of a ream.
Historically, it has had other meanings:
A quire was originally an unfolded stack of 4 sheets of vellum or parchment, which (depending on the method used) would form an 8- or 16-page booklet when stitched and folded. Back then, the terms quaternion or quaternum were more commonly used.
The current word 'quire' was derived when quaternum was shortened to "quair" or "guaer" in common usage. Afterwards, 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.
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."
In blankbook binding, quire is a term indicating 80 pages.
