''Quaere'' is

legal Latin A number of Latin terms are used in legal terminology and legal maxims. This is a partial list of these terms, which are wholly or substantially drawn from Latin. __TOC__ Common law Civil law Ecclesiastical law See also * B ...

, literally meaning "inquire" or "query". In legal drafting it is usually used to indicate that the person expressing the view that precedes the phrase may not adhere to the hypothesis following it. For example: :"I am of the view that the defendant had constructive knowledge of the acts of the sub-contractor, although ''quaere'' whether this would still be true had the sub-contractor not included a summary of those acts in the joint proposal that was issued." The word Quaere has occasionally, as a result of misunderstanding, appeared on maps or in gazetteers. The columnist

Miles Kington Miles Beresford Kington (13 May 1941 – 30 January 2008) was a British journalist, musician (a double bass player for Instant Sunshine and other groups) and broadcaster. He is also credited with the invention of Franglais, a fictional language, ...

, writing in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'', records that a map-maker c. 1578 was compiling a map of

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

. There was a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

where he had doubts about the correct name. He therefore wrote on the draft map ''Quaere''. This was mistaken by the engraver of the map as being the name of a hamlet or village. The error persisted for well over two centuries; the following brief entry appears in a gazetteer published in 1805: ''QUÆRE, (Wilts) near Wilton.'' This obscure word is also used in the Queen song, "The Fairy Fellers Master-Stroke" from the album Queen II, used simply as a rhyming word for 'fairy' - as in the use of the word 'Quaere' in the repeated lines "What a quaere fellow," Roger Taylor stressed that it was not related to Freddie Mercury's sexuality. '' 'Mojo magazine interview', http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=14377

References

{{reflist Latin legal terminology