Etymograph

English

quotation

Quotation comes from Latin quotō.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEquotō1as quotāre
  2. Medieval Latinc. 600–1500quotātiō1
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1868quotation1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English quotation
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1868, Samuel White Baker, Arrival at Metemma, or Gallabat: “One of these preachers was a blacksmith, whose iron…”.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEquotōWiktionary, English quotationas quotāre
  2. Medieval Latinc. 600–1500quotātiōWiktionary, English quotation
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1868quotationWiktionary, English quotation. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1868, Samuel White Baker, Arrival at Metemma, or Gallabat: “One of these preachers was a blacksmith, whose iron…”

Formed from quote + -ation

Proto-Indo-European *kʷís ‘who, what’

…

Latin quotus ‘which’

Medieval Latin quotō ‘to distinguish by numbers’

Old French coter

Middle English quoten

English quote

The story

The obsolete sense of “quota”, from Medieval Latin quotātiō, from Latin quotāre, is attested from the 15th century. The sense “fragment of verbal expression”, attested from the 17th century, may come from this source, or else from the verb quote + -ation.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Latin quotō

Today it means

noun A fragment of a human expression that is repeated by somebody else, for example from literature or a famous speech.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “quotation”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Latin quotō / quotation

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