Quotation
/kwoʊˈteɪʃən/noun
A passage or phrase repeated from a source; also the act of quoting.
Did you know?Quotation comes from Latin quotare, “to mark a number” or “to divide by numbers,” the same ancestor behind the idea of a quote as a marked-off amount before it became a marked-off passage of speech.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*kwo-
“Interrogative/quantifying root meaning “who?” or “how many?””
Latin
Latin
quot
“How many; as many as”
Late Latin
Latin
quotare
“To mark or divide by numbers”
Old French
Old French
quotacion
“A marking or numbering; an estimate or citation”
Middle English
English
quotacioun
“An act of citing or noting”
Modern English
English
quotation
“A passage repeated from another source; the act of quoting”