Quoting

How to spell quoting

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce quoting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does quoting mean?

1. verbRepeating or citing the exact words written or spoken by another person or source.
2. verbStating a fixed price or estimate for goods or a job.

Quoting in a sentence

• The journalist was careful when quoting the minister directly.

• The builder is quoting a higher figure than we expected.

• Quoting the original report strengthened her argument considerably.

• When quoting for the repair, the garage included parts and labour.

Where does quoting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb quotare, meaning 'to number' or 'to mark with chapter numbers', which was itself formed from quot, the Latin word for 'how many'. In medieval scholarship a writer would 'quote' a passage by marking it with the number of its chapter or section, so that others could find the exact reference. English took the word in during the late 1300s and 1400s, at first in this bookish sense of citing a numbered place in a text, and only later broadening to mean repeating someone's exact words. The commercial sense, as in quoting a price, grew naturally out of stating a definite figure. The same quot root survives in the everyday words 'quota' (an assigned number) and 'quotient' (a result of division), which can help fix why the spelling opens with quo- rather than the cw- sound it seems to make.

How the word is built

• quot- (from Latin quotare: to number, to cite)
• -ing (present participle suffix); note the silent 'e' of 'quote' is dropped before -ing