The term is generally accepted to refer to a shaft of hardwood from 6 to 9 feet (1.8 to 2.7 m) long, sometimes with a metal tip, ferrule, or spike at one or both ends.

The height of the staff should be around the same as the user plus their hand set upright on their head (approximately 8 inches (20 cm)).

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.

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."

[5] George Silver (1599) explains techniques of short-staff combat and states that the use of other polearms and the two-handed sword are based on the same method.

Paulus Hector Mair in his martial arts compendium of the mid-16th century, details techniques of fighting with the staff in the German school of fencing of the Renaissance.

[10][11][7] The position with one hand held at the quarter and the other at the middle of the staff is not found in these early modern manuals, but it is described in the quarterstaff manuals published in the late 19th century, e.g. McCarthy (1883): "both hands should be 2.5 feet (76 cm) apart, and the same distance from each end".

This implies that the quarterstaff was in use before and during the 16th to 18th centuries, as the tale of Robin Hood is mostly written of during that time frame.