quatern vs quaternary

quatern

adj
  • quaternate; composed of, or arranged in, sets of four. 

quaternary

adj
  • composed of four elements 

  • Relating to or in number base four 

  • Of fourth rank or order 

  • Of a mathematical expression containing e.g. x⁴ 

  • quaternary ammonium 

noun
  • A quaternary compound. 

  • The Quaternary period or the system of deposits laid down during it. 

How often have the words quatern and quaternary occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )