квакеры (от англ. quakers, букв. трясущиеся), члены христианской общины; отвергают институт священников, проповедуют пацифизм, занимаются благотворительностью.
Quakers who migrated to New England were persecuted by the Puritans. They were driven out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony but were accepted in Rhode Island. The Friends (their official name is the "Religious Society of Friends") found a home in Pennsylvania, 1681, where William Penn, a convert to Quakerism welcomed them. Now the Friends have abandoned their special clothes and forms of address ("thee" and "thou") but have held to their basic principles. There are about 127,000 Friends in the U.S.
Америка через американизмы. — М.: «Высшая школа». Г.Д. Томахин. 1982.