Doc Jargon: All about the quarters

Photo By Collen McGee | Doc Jargon, cutting through the jargon that is the U.S. Army.  

FORT RILEY, KS, UNITED STATES

11.30.2022

Story by Collen McGee 

Fort Riley Public Affairs Office

Dear Doc Jargon,
I keep seeing in the news issues about military housing. I too have an issue but mine is a curiosity thing about the term quarters when referencing military living accommodations. My four-year-old heard the term and said he wanted a quarter too — I really didn’t know how to tell him what the term meant. Can you tell me how the places military families live got the name quarters?

Sincerely,
Quarter Mom

Dear Quarter Mom,
I was interested in this as well. At first I thought maybe Soldiers shared a house and it referred to the fraction a Soldier got as his private space. But when I did some more research, I found an article that referred to the way the Roman Legions would set up their camps and would section them off in four parts – thus a quarter. Check out the article I saw here www.quora.com/Why-do-they-call-military-housing-quarters.

Each quarter has a leader and that is where the term quartermaster came from – but according to the article I found – that was a definition used later in history - in the 15th century when a town would be divided and one fourth of it would be where the military lived.

Another use came along in the 17th century when the English Parliament issued an order the Ordinance of No Quarter to the Irish. The order prohibited the rent of housing to those of Irish descent – specifically Irish Catholics according to an excerpt of the order found on www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp554-555.

So, we call it quarters still and yet the term has continued to morph in meaning. Because of the anti-Irish act, the term no quarter has also come to mean no mercy.

So – I hope this helped with your curiosity. As for your son, give the boy a quarter for his piggy bank and tell him a story about his Soldier.

Sincerely,
Doc Jargon

• Date Taken: 11.30.2022
• Date Posted: 11.30.2022 12:10
• Story ID: 434211
• Location: FORT RILEY, KS, US