To repeat someone’s exact words, usually mentioning who said them; also, to give a stated price for a product or service.
From Medieval Latin *quotare* meaning 'to mark with numbers, to refer to', from Latin *quot* ('how many'). It originally referred to marking passages, then to repeating them.
Quote and *quota* share a root about 'how many', because early 'quoting' was like numbering and pointing to parts of a text. Every time you put words in quotation marks, you’re doing a tiny act of historical text‑marking.
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