quartern

noun

1. (archaic)A quarter part; one fourth.

   “In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.”

2. (archaic)A loaf of bread weighing about four pounds.

   “...I find that you, in recording the longevity of incumbents ([[https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044005279021] 1ˢᵗ S. xi. 407.]) notice that the quartern loaf was on the 5th March, 1801, at the enormous price of twenty-two pence halfpenny, happily at this moment only two-fifths of that amount...”

   “Let those who used to gibe at diplomacy and cry out against armaments consider how our manufacturing population is to be employed when half our exports are gone how our crowded cities are to be fed when ten millions of our workmen are out of work and the quartern loaf is at a shilling how are our industries to be started when the banks are bankrupt and the Exchequer has to find interest on a war indemnity of two thousand million sterling.”