Quakers - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

QUAKERS, originally a cant name applied in derision to the members of the Society of Friends, but now used without any contemptuous significance. It was said to have originated in the saying of Justice Bennet at Derby in 1650, "Tremble (or quake) at the word of the Lord," but it is now certain that it was used as early as 1647, and arose from the physical manifestations of religious emotion characteristic of many of the early Friends. (See FRIENDS, SOCIETY OF.)