Quotienting

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Dividing one number or quantity by another to find how many times the second fits into the first
2. The mathematical process of splitting a value by a divisor to obtain the resulting ratio
3. Calculating the result of dividing one amount by another, especially in arithmetic or algebra

Etymology: "Quotienting" is the present participle of "quotient", so it describes the act of dividing one number by another. The root is the Latin "quotiens", meaning "how many times", and "quotient" was borrowed from the Latin form "quotiens" in the sense of how often one quantity fits into another. Division was originally a question of counting: how many times does 3 go into 12? The answer, 4, is the quotient. The Latin "quotiens" was built from "quot", meaning "how many", the same root that gives English "quota" and "quote" in its older sense of marking a number. The Latin word itself was a compound of that interrogative stem with a suffix, so the idea of counting out has been built into the word from the beginning.