Etymograph

English

quality

Quality comes from Old French qualité, from Latin quālitās, from quālis ‘of what kind’, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷo- ‘who’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*kʷo-‘who, how’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEquālis‘of what kind’
  3. Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEquālitās‘quality’
  4. Old Frenchc. 842–1400qualité
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500qualite
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1601quality

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*kʷo-‘who, how’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEquālis‘of what kind’
  3. Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEquālitās‘quality’
  4. Old Frenchc. 842–1400qualité
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500qualite
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1601quality

Earliest quotation: 1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […]: “Tuc[ca]. […] Can thy Author doe it impudently enough?…”

The story

Cicero coined qualitas as a calque to translate the Ancient Greek word ποιότης (poiótēs, “quality”), coined by Plato from ποῖος (poîos, “of what nature, of what kind”).

Every English word from Proto-Indo-European *kʷo-

Today it means

noun The kind, condition, and/or the set of characteristics of something, as opposed to the quantity of something.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *kʷo- / quality

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