Quotation

Quotation

Noun · /kwəʊˈteɪʃən/ · (1) words repeated from a source; (2) a stated price for goods or work

Definition

A quotation is a group of words taken from a text, speech, or piece of writing and repeated by someone other than the original author, typically to support an argument, illustrate a point, or honour a great mind. He opened his speech with a quotation from Churchill. In a second, entirely separate sense, a quotation is a formal statement of the price at which a contractor or supplier will carry out a piece of work or supply goods. We received three quotations for the building work. Both meanings are in active daily use; context almost always makes clear which is intended.

Origin

From Medieval Latin quotationem, the act of citing passages by number, from quotare, to mark with numbers — itself from Latin quot, how many. Manuscripts were numbered by chapters or verses, and a quotation was originally a reference to a specific numbered passage. The sense broadened from citing a numbered passage to repeating the actual words of that passage, and later extended to the commercial sense of citing a specific price.