Quote

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /kwəʊt/

Definitions

1. A passage or statement repeated from a source, attributed to its original author or speaker
2. A citation of text or speech from an original speaker or writer, often used to support an argument or provide evidence
3. A reference to a statement made by someone else, highlighting the author's identity while presenting the material

Etymology: Medieval scholars did not start out quoting anyone. The ancestor of "quote" was a verb meaning to mark a book with chapter numbers or marginal references. It came into Middle English as "quoten" or "coten" from Old French "coter", which in turn traced back to Medieval Latin "quotāre", "to distinguish by numbers". That Latin word was built from "quotus", meaning "which number in sequence", and ultimately from "quot", "how many". The sense then shifted from numbering pages to pointing readers to a source: giving a passage as a reference, or citing an authority. By 1680 the word had narrowed further to mean copying out exact words. The noun meaning a quotation is not recorded until 1885, so the familiar sense of a quoted sentence is a relatively late development on a very old stem. A curious twist came in 1866, when "quote" was used in business for stating the price of a commodity. That sense revives the word's original idea of attaching a precise number to something.

Synonyms: citation, excerpt, quotation