quarion

• quariar
• quarrier

The Oxford Dictionary cites usage as early as 1512 and lists quarrier as a variant of the term.^[1]

quarion (plural quarions)

1. (rare, obsolete) A square lump of wax (with a wick in the center), to be burned like a candle.
   • 1512, Furnivall, Frederick James, Early English meals and manners: John Russell's Boke of nurture, Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of keruynge, The boke of curtasye, R. Weste's Booke of demeanor, Seager's Schoole of vertue, The babees book, Aristotle's A B C, Urbanitatis, Stans puer ad mensam, The lytylle childrenes lytil boke, For to serve a lord, Old Symon, The birched school-boy, &c. &c., with some forewords on education in early England‎^[1], page 189:

     "The Percy household allowance of Wax was cciiij score vij lb. dimid. (287.5 pounds of wax) of Wax for th' expensys of my House for oone hole Tere (one whole year). Viz. Sysez, Fryhetts, Quarions, and Torches [types or forms of candles] after ix d. the lb. by estimacion [estimated cost was nine pence per pound].

   • 1876, Charlotte M. Yonge, The Three Brides‎^[2], page 257:

     He marshaled them into the drawing-room, where by dim firelight they could just discern the Professor […] the man hastily stirred up the fire, lighted the gas […] “She’s coming to see the quarion!” […] There was a small conservatory or glazed niche on one side of the room, into which the boy dragged Lenore, and Julius followed, dimly sensible of what the quarion might be […]

   • 1918, Jones, Paul Van Brunt, The household of a Tudor nobleman‎^[3], page 82:

     Light was highly esteemed by the earl if we can judge from the illuminating power lying hid in the four thousand eighty-seven and one-half pounds of wax, requiring fifty-one pounds of wick for its manufacture into sizes, prickets, quarions, and torches, and the ninety-one dozen and two pounds of Paris candles which were to be made from tallow provided by the house. The torches had rosin also in their composition, twenty-nine pounds of which was ordered. [Footnote] A "quarion" was a square lump of wax with a wick in the middle, later known at a "mortice."

   • 1950, Westcott, Jan, The Hepburn‎^[4], page 178:

     The candles to be used were purest wax. Not a rushlight, nor a stinking torch nor quarion would be lighted.

   • 2006, Virginia Henley, Infamous‎^[5], page 178:

     Jory [...] purchased carpets, wardrobes, high-backed padded settles, quarion stands that held square candles, and dozens of cushions.

   • 2009, Virginia Henley, The Border Hostage‎^[6], page 101:

     He lit the square quarion candle and saw that the door to the adjoining chamber was closed. […] The fire had burned low, so he built it up and set a fireguard before it.

Quarions later became known as mortises or mortices.

• "Quariars or quarions, occasionally called "morters" or "mortises," were also employed sometimes to serve the purpose of a taper. A quarion, says Bishop Percy, was a square lump of wax with a wick in the centre. Round lumps of the same are still used in the royal nursery under the name of "mortises" (see the 'Northumberland Household Book and Arechœologia, vol. iii. p. 156)." — J. Holden MacMichael, Notes and Queries p. 196, 1904.
• 2023. Jason Travis Ott. "Quarion". Grandiloquent Words: A Pictoric Lexicon of Ostrobogulous Locutions.