"Quyer" When and why did the spelling change so drastically?

The snippet above is taken from The Gentleman's Magazine (London, England), Volume 53, dated, 1783. It's only when you say Quyer out loud, do you realize what the word is. It is one of the quirkiest spelled words in the English language today, choir, pronounced /ˈkwʌɪə/. Initially, quyer looks idiosyncratic and alien-looking, until you realize that the spelling is phonetic and what's more, it makes perfect sense. In addition, quyer looks English whereas the Modern English spelling of choir appears to be derived from the French choeur.

There are other instances of quyer in Google Books, published in 1715, 1726, 1772, and 1807

When did the present day spelling choir definitely replace that of quyer? Why wasn't the original (?), more English-looking, and more phonological qu kept?

EDIT Many thanks to @Kris who kindly pointed out my error in the comments below.

When did the present day spelling choir supersede that of quyer ?" It did? No. nGram cited by Josh demonstrates that choir always was dominant, while quyer lived a secondary existence until c.1825, when it pretty much disappeared

Solution 1:

Quyer and choir possibly have different meanings.

From the context you gave, it looks like quyer is the equivalent of the modern-day word quire. A quire is not a group of singers, but rather it's the part of a church where those singers sit.

Choir is clearly a strongly related word, describing the group of singers. To muddy the water a bit, the spelling choir is also a commonly used alternative spelling for quire.

So it looks to me like rather than the spelling quyer dying out and being replaced by choir, the history of the words is more like this:

• Before English spelling was codified, there were a variety of spellings for this word, and it could be used to refer both to the singers, and the place where they sit.
• Once spelling started to standardize, people used quyer (and variations on it) for the place, and choir (and variations on it) for the singers.
• Quyer looks kind of weird, and eventually evolved into quire, which looks like a more normal English spelling.
• Nowadays, very few people who are not experts at church architecture will frequently encounter the word quire, so end up using choir instead, which would account for the declining usage of quire.

(I personally am only familiar with the term quire from having to sit in one at a wedding I recently attended.)

Solution 2:

etymonline says this:

c.1300, queor "part of the church where the choir sings," from Old French cuer, quer "choir of a church (architectural); chorus of singers" (13c., Modern French choeur), from Latin chorus "choir" (see chorus). Meaning "band of singers" is c.1400, quyre. Re-spelled mid-17c. on Latin model.

Contrary to my initial instinct, the qu seems to actually have been an Old French spelling change (I would usually assume qu to be more Latin than French).

The 17th century respelling seems to have been aimed at reflecting the actual origin of the word from Latin (this etymological spelling was at the basis of many respelling efforts) but it did end up making the word look more like modern French instead. A case of historic irony?

I guess the old spelling of quyer survived for a while out of habit, or possibly because people did not actually associate choir with the same, but differently spelled choir (which may well have looked like a newly-borrowed French word).