quire

/kwaɪər/

/kwaɪə/

Other forms: quires

Like a ream or a bale, a quire is a quantity of paper. There are 25 sheets of paper in a quire, plenty for you to write that short story.

A quire is one-twentieth of a ream, which today means 25 pieces of paper per quire. Originally, each quire contained 24 sheets, a measurement that's still occasionally used for handmade paper. During the Middle Ages, a quire was a little book or pamphlet made from four folded sheets of parchment. The name stems from the medieval Latin quaternum, "set of four sheets of parchment," and the root quater, "four times."

Definitions of quire

1. noun

   a quantity of paper; 24 or 25 sheets
   type of:

   definite quantity

   a specific measure of amount