Definition of "quailed" []

• Simple past tense and past participle of quail. (verb)

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• "But if this is not true, as even David Cameron began to recognise in last week's speech, though he quailed before the full logic of his new position, then everything changes."
• "He's a person who quailed before imagined public prejudice by cancelling an exhibition of Arab-Canadian art immediately after 9/11 -- for which he received a parliamentary rap on the knuckles."
• "She quailed for a moment and the red spots on her cheeks looked like blood as she, incredibly, paled even more."