Etymology

cite

C3I1T1E1

Today it means: To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another. Full definition →

Old French citer ← Latin citare
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

cite · verb1

  1. Latin · derived fromcitare“to cause to move, excite, summon”
  2. Old French · derived fromciter
  3. English todaycite

From Old French citer, from Latin citare (“to cause to move, excite, summon”), frequentative of ciēre (“to rouse, excite, call”). Sense 4 is the original one.

cite · noun2

From the first syllable of citation. Analogous to quote, from quotation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.