Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)

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First published 1986 (DOST Vol. VI).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Quere, Queir, adj. Also: qweir, queyr. [e.m.E. has quer(e (1550), queer(e (1598), and e.m.E. cant quire (1561), quyre (1567), quier (1609), queer (a1700); the early applications of these appar. include ‘worthless, bad, base, rascally’ and (but perh. only f. 1663) ‘queer’, in the mod. sense of ‘strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric’; derivation, in various transf. senses, f. Germ. (and LG) quer transverse, oblique, squint, perverse, seems possible. A further uncertainty is that the first of the two Sc. examples might just possibly be an attrib. use of Quer(e n. (choir).] ? Rascally; ? worthless; ? odd, ‘funny’. — c1500-c1512 Dunb. Flyt. 218.
Heir cumis our awin queir clerk 1513 Doug. viii Prol. 43.
The cadgyar callis furth his capill … Calland the colȝar a knafe and culron ful qweir [Sm. queyr, Ruddim. quere]