quotation

A fragment of a human expression that is repeated by somebody else, for example from literature or a famous speech.

Noun

  1. A fragment of a human expression that is repeated by somebody else, for example from literature or a famous speech.
    • "Where they burn books, they will also burn people" is a famous quotation from Heinrich Heine.

    Synonyms: citation cite quote

  2. The act of quoting someone or something.
    • One of these preachers was a blacksmith, whose iron constitution had entirely given way, and the little strength that remained he exhausted in endless quotation of texts from the Bible. - 1868, S[amuel] W[hite] Baker,...
    • Mr. [Augustine] Birrell has, as usual, quoted very liberally, and to excellent effect. Quotation is an art the difficulty of which may easily be underrated by paragraph-writers or by persons who do not write at all. You...
    • In his mature works, [Chinary] Ung pays regular homage to Cambodian music by evoking its ambience without resorting to quotation of specific Cambodian melodies. - 1992, David Tsang, “UNG, Chinary”, in Brian Morton,...

    Synonyms: citation

  3. A price that has been quoted for buying or selling.
    • Let's get a quotation for repairing the roof before we decide whether it's worth doing.
  4. The act of setting a price.
  5. A quota, a share.

Origin

The obsolete sense of “quota”, from Medieval Latin quotātiō, from Latin quotāre, is attested from the 15th century. The sense “fragment of verbal expression”, attested from the 17th century, may come from this source, or else from the verb quote + -ation.

Forms

quotations

Synonyms

quote

Hyponyms

bid ask offer

Derived

disquotation indirect quotation logical quotation misquotation overquotation quasiquotation quotational quotationally quotation dash quotationist quotationless quotation mark request for quotation requotation RFQ underquotation