quire

Quire is a term with several distinct meanings in different fields. In printing and papermaking, a quire is a unit of quantity for sheets of paper. In music and church contexts, quire is an archaic spelling of choir, referring to the group of singers or the seating area reserved for them. The word also appears as a modern product name and as a surname.

In papermaking, a quire traditionally consists of 24 sheets. A larger unit, the ream, is usually defined as 20 quires, for a total of 480 sheets in the traditional system. In modern commercial use, reams of 500 sheets are common, and the exact numbers can vary by region and era.

In liturgical usage, the quire refers to the choir or the area where the choir sits or performs, often forming a distinct architectural space within a church or cathedral.

Quire is also the name of a contemporary software product, a cloud-based project management and collaboration tool. The term may thus be encountered in historical texts, in ecclesiastical contexts, or as a modern brand name, and it can also appear as a surname.