quine

quine · noun, verb¹

From Quine, named after the American logician and philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000). Verb etymology 1, verb sense 1 (“to append (a text) to a quotation of itself”) was coined by the American cognitive and computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter (born 1945) in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979; see the quotation), referring to Quine’s study of indirect self-reference and in particular Quine’s paradox, the following statement that produces a paradox: “‘Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation’ yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.” Hofstadter also referred to the concept of noun etymology 1, noun sense 1 (“program that produces its own source code as output”) in the book, but termed it a self-rep rather than a quine. Verb etymology 1, verb sense 2 (“to deny the importance or significance of (something obviously real or important)”) was independently coined by the American cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett (1942–2024) in September 1969 in the original version of his work The Philosophical Lexicon: see the 1987 quotation.

quine · adjective²

1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*pénkʷe“five; hand”
2. Latin · learned borrowing fromquīnī“five at a time; five together”
3. English todayquine

PIE word *pénkʷe Learned borrowing from Latin quīnī (“five at a time; five together”), a plural form of quīnus (“five at a time; five each”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe (“five; hand”).

Quine · proper noun³

1. Manx · borrowed fromQuine
2. English todayQuine

From Manx Quine.

Words from the same roots