Denying the enemy ‘quarter’ may sound like tough talk, but it would be a war crime | CNN

At a March 13 news briefing about the US-Israeli war with Iran, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proclaimed: “We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” Of the Oxford English Dictionary’s few dozen definitions for “quarter” — covering units of measurement, physical locations and particular parts of things — several are linked to militaries. “Quarter” is slang for the rank of quartermaster. It can mean lodging for soldiers or the act of housing troops, as in the Third Amendment’s proscription “in time of peace” on allowing troops to “be quartered in any house” without the owner’s permission. “Close quarters” can refer to fighting at short distances; a “quarter of assembly” was once a point of rendezvous for troops. Since the early 1600s, “quarter” has also meant the act of showing mercy and sparing the life of an adversary who surrenders in battle. In this context, it’s more common to see “quarter” used in the negative, in the phrase “no quarter,” as in Hegseth’s comment. The phrase is widely understood to mean taking no prisoners, or rejecting an opponent’s surrender and killing them instead.