cociente

Forms

cociente m (plural cocientes)^[1] The older spellings quociente, quotiente and cuociente were common until the 19th century; the Academy defined cociente by cuociente until 1899.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin quotiēns, a noun made from the adverb Latin quotiēns (“how many times”).^[5][6][1] The DLE derives it from the older Old Spanish cuociente, from the Latin word, and points to the root quot (“how many”).^[3] Bénaben also derives it from the Latin adverb.^[7]

The adverb is formed from Latin quot + -iēns.^[1][8] Corominas treats the word in the same article as cota and cuota, from the same Latin root.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates it 1709, in Tosca, in the form quociente.^[5][6] The CDH and the DTME have it in 1527, in Alonso de Chaves's work on practical cosmography: el número cociente “the quotient number” gives the height of the object measured.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century the word was first an adjective of número (número quotiente). Pérez de Moya's arithmetic of 1562 uses it as a noun, and in 1589 he named the three numbers of a division partición, partidor and quociente.^[2] Spanish arithmetic in Mexico used número cotiente and quotiente in 1583.^[10] In psychology it is used in cociente intelectual “intelligence quotient”.^[3][11]

Timeline

• c. 1527 – Alonso de Chaves's Quatri partitu en cosmografía práctica.^[2][9]
• 1562 – Pérez de Moya's Diálogos de aritmética use it as a noun.^[2]
• 1583 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[10]
• 1709 – Tosca writes quociente.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy labels it as a term of algebra and arithmetic.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (mathematics) quotient, the result of dividing (dividir) one quantity by another, which shows how many times the divisor goes into the dividend (dividendo): Al dividir quince entre tres, el cociente es cinco.^[3][1]
2. (psychology) In cociente intelectual, intelligence quotient, a number given by dividing mental age by physical age and multiplying by 100.^[3][11]

Related words

• cuota
• cota
• coeficiente
• Latin quotiēns

Usage notes

Old Spanish had a separate cociente, an adjective from cocer “to cook” meaning “cooking, burning, hot”;^[13][1] DICCA-XV records it from about 1400 and says it was formed after Catalan coent “hot, spicy”.^[13][1] The Libro de Alexandre has the phrase en cociente “straight away, while hot”.^[14][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cociente
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. cociente
4. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 234
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 225
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cociente
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cociente
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. cociente
10. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. cociente
11. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cociente
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 251
13. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. cociente
14. ^ Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 710
15. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 255