Quaere is legal Latin, literally meaning "inquire" or "query". In legal drafting it is usually used to indicate that the person expressing the view that precedes the phrase may not adhere to the hypothesis following it. For example:

"I am of the view that the defendant had constructive knowledge of the acts of the sub-contractor, although quaere whether this would still be true had the sub-contractor not included a summary of those acts in the joint proposal that was issued."

The word Quaere has occasionally, as a result of misunderstanding, appeared on maps or in gazetteers. The columnist Miles Kington

Miles Kington

Miles Beresford Kington was a British journalist, musician and broadcaster.-Early life :...

, writing in The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

, records that a map-maker c. 1578 was compiling a map of Wiltshire

Wiltshire

Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...

. There was a hamlet

Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...

where he had doubts about the correct name. He therefore wrote on the draft map Quaere. This was mistaken by the engraver of the map as being the name of a hamlet or village. The error persisted for well over two centuries; the following brief entry appears in a gazetteer published in 1805:

QUÆRE, (Wilts) near Wilton.