Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Everyday; commonplace: "There's nothing quite like a real . . . train conductor to add color to a quotidian commute” ( Anita Diamant).
- adj. Recurring daily. Used especially of attacks of malaria.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Daily; occurring or returning daily: as, a quotidian fever.
- n. Something that returns or is expected every day; specifically, in medicine, a fever whose paroxysms return every day.
- n. A cleric or church officer who does daily duty.
- n. Payment given for such duty.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Occurring or returning daily.
- n. Anything returning daily; especially (Med.), an intermittent fever or ague which returns every day.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. found in the ordinary course of events
Etymologies
- From Anglo-Norman cotidian, cotidien, Middle French cotidian, cotidien, and their source, Latin cottīdiānus, quōtīdiānus ("happening every day"), from adverb cottīdiē, quōtīdiē ("every day, daily"), from an unattested adjective derived from quot ("how many") + locative form of diēs ("day"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English cotidien, from Old French, from Latin quōtīdiānus, from quōtīdiē, each day : quot, how many, as many as; + diē, ablative of diēs, day. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“English landscape, Austen offers a sort of test case that asks how the sensibility endorsed by the eighteenth-century novel fares in quotidian England.”
Money, Matrimony, and Memory: Secondary Heroines in Radcliffe, Austen, and Cooper
“I never heard the word quotidian in this sense, and I imagined it to be a word of Dr. Johnson's own fabrication; but I have since found it in”
“I never heard the word quotidian in this sense, and I imagined it to be a word of Dr Johnson's own fabrication; but I have since found it in Young's”
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
“Austen’s heroines ask readers to choose between two versions of English identity: the familiar heroine of sensibility, who is comically out of place in quotidian England, or a pragmatic heroine of sense, who is capable of navigating the changing class structure of early nineteenth-century England.”
Money, Matrimony, and Memory: Secondary Heroines in Radcliffe, Austen, and Cooper
“I never heard the word quotidian in this sense, and I imagined it to be a word of Dr Johnson’s own fabrication; but”
“These (sung, but not high, Masses), are the Masses that are called quotidianæ in the Missal.”
“The laid-back tone of the show is the same as ever: Big Hollywood events are sparsely interspersed with the monotony of the quotidian even if the quotidian is a high roller's.”
“The quotidian is the daily, the ordinary existence, the "what happens anyway".”
“It means "daily bread," but somehow "quotidian" seems right for Seinfeld, 52, a guy whose entire career is built on his bemused study of everyday life.”
“Under his expert hand, the Wiener Philharmoniker, apt to phone it in for something as "quotidian" as Mozart's 40th, shines and sparkles with the swank and swagger only it has.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘quotidian’.
-
Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
-
GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
-
allover
reintegrate, spight, surveillant, harmonize, Colophon, workplace, bigoted, unsighted, bridgework, salutation, voltmeter, octane and 159 more...
-
501
Classic
mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly and 401 more...
-
Another 250 Spelling Words
Another range of words from the intermediate to the advanced speller's level.
cherimoya, parthenogenesis, sommelier, bupkis, kichel, voulge, indivisibility, retiarius, sewellel, vihuela, ossature, jalfrezi and 238 more...
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
-
words 1
Traduce, Ramify, precipitous, rapture, adumbrate, knell, smolder, vagary, choleric, sibylline, hypocritical, jejune and 135 more...
-
501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
-
phrontistery - q
from phrontistery.info
quoz, quotuple, quotum, quotition, quotiety, quotidian, quotha, quotennial, quotatious, quorate, quondam, quomodocunquize and 227 more...
-
501
Classic
irk, teem, blight, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado and 401 more...
-
(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
replete, steeped, eminent, indiscriminate, voracious, automaton, prognosticate, technology, abound, matron, tinge, compound and 297 more...
-
501
Classic
bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august and 401 more...
-
Vocabulary
shibboleth, verboten, jejune, ostensible, multifarious, quintessence, purportedly, tangential, vacillate, quagmire, wanton, onerous and 74 more...
-
gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
-
My GRE Vocab
moniker, sobriquet, prerogative, aberration, aberrant, nuance, notorious, infamous, content, refer, allude, renown and 109 more...
-
Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for quotidian.
Louises 'We know that we abide with quarks and constellations in a reality unknowable by us in a degree, we will never be able to calculate but reality all the same, the stuff and the matrix of our supposedly qotidian existence'. The Absence of Mind by Marilynne Robinson 2010. Apr 20, 2013
nycanthro There's a bakery/restaurant near my campus with decent coffee and overpriced, delicious pastries and breads called Le Pain Quotidien, which, of course is from the French meaning "daily beating." Reminds me of my childhood in the 1980's New York City school system. Mar 2, 2009
scete Beauty is not quotidian, it is a rare delight Dec 4, 2008
tree i love that in medicine it denotes the malignant form of malaria. so it's everyday stuff or DEATHLY MOSQUITO BITES. May 8, 2008
reesetee Wow, I haven't thought of that in years. But you're right--it is like an earworm.
Oh, great.... Nov 11, 2007
chained_bear Every time I see this word go by on the front page--which is kinda frequently--I start reciting the Lord's Prayer in Latin: "Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimite nobis debita nostra, et dimitimus debitoribus nostrus, et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo, Amen."
I have no idea if any of that is right (it's been quite a while). But "quotidian" definitely makes me recite the last part in my head. And then I get kinda mad because I don't really remember it that well. It's like an earworm, but you don't know all the words. Aaagh! Nov 11, 2007
abraxaszugzwang Dude, quotato's awesome. No worries. Jan 21, 2007
quotato Oh no! My wordie name is quotato---sounds like word quotidian Dec 4, 2006