quarter

[bbeeton]

This has so many meanings that it may be a word that the good doctor won't touch, but here goes.

Most meanings are based on quarter as "a fourth part". A fourth part of a U.S. dollar is a quarter. Even a quarter horse is so named because the beast can outrun other horses over distances of a quarter mile or less. Extend this subdivision to a verb, and you get "draw and quarter".

A quarter of a city or town, e.g. the "Latin quarter", may be one part of many more than four. (Maybe it started out in a smaller town.) As a guess, "quarters" as one's dwelling place or headquarters, even "general quarters", is probably derived from quarter as a location.

Truncating the word, you get "quart", or one-fourth of a gallon.

[Slava]

And if you go the other direction and increase the word, you get up to another 4 sense, quarantine.