 The possibility that the name derives from the way the staff is held, the right hand grasping it one-quarter of the distance from the lower end, is suggested in Encyclopædia Britannica.While this interpretation may have given rise to such positions in 19th-century manuals,
it probably arose by popular etymology.The Oxford English Dictionary, in support of its explanation of the "quarter" in origin referring to the way the staff was made, points to an early attestation of the term, dated to 1590,
"Plodding through Aldersgate, all armed as I was, with a quarter Ashe staffe on my shoulder."