Etymologically
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quot

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈkʷɔt][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈkʷɔt][1]

Forms

quot (indeclinable)[1] Manuscripts often spell it quod.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *kʷoti, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *kʷe/o-ti (“how many”), from the interrogative stem *kʷos.[3][1] Cognate with Sanskrit कति (káti, “how many”), Avestan caiti and Ancient Greek πόσος (pósos, “how great, how many”).[3][4] De Vaan notes that ⟨*kʷo-⟩ regularly gave ⟨co-⟩, as in cottīdiē (“every day”) (“how many days”), and that ⟨quot⟩ restored ⟨qu-⟩ after quantus and related words.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Asinaria: quot pondō tē esse cēnsēs nūdum?, “how many pounds do you think you weigh naked?”.[4][3]

Semantic evolution

It is an indeclinable plural adjective, used in questions (direct, indirect and exclamatory: “how many!”) and as a relative “as many as”, usually answered by tot or totidem: Terence's proverb quot hominēs, tot sententiae, “as many men, so many opinions”.[4][2] With nouns of time it means “every”, as in quot mēnsibus, “every month” (Cato) and quot annīs, “every year”, which became the adverb quotannīs.[4][3] Church Latin glosses it “how many”, with quotquot “however many”.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus in questions and exclamations.[4][6]
  • 234–149 BC – Cato: quot mēnsibus, “every month”.[4][6]
  • 190–159 BC – Terence: quot hominēs, tot sententiae.[4][6]

Meanings

Determiner

  1. (interrogative and exclamatory) How many?; how many![4][1][5]
  2. (relative, often with tot) As many as.[4][1]
  3. (with nouns of time) Every, each.[4]

Word family

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de