quotidian, a. and n.
(kwəʊˈtɪdɪən)
Forms: 4, 6 cotidien, (4 -ene); 4–6 cotidian, -ane, (5 -yan, cotydian, -yan, 6 -yane); 4– quotidian, (6 -ane, -ene, quotydian).
[a. OF. cotidien, -ian (13th c., mod.F. quotidien), or ad. L. cot-, quotīdiān-us, f. cot-, quotīdiē every day, daily.]
A. adj.
1. a. Of things, acts, etc.: Of or pertaining to every day; daily.
| c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 62 Ȝif þei preien, þat is..comunly for offrynge & cotidian distribucion. 1406 Hoccleve La Male Regle 25 My grief and bisy smert cotidian. 1432–50 tr. Higden (Rolls) V. 307 He made the preface quotidian. 1483 Caxton Gold. Leg. 274 b/2 [A] cotidyan fornays is oure tonge humayne. 1513 Bradshaw St. Werburge i. xx. 5 The cotydyane labours her body to chastyce. 1550 Veron Godly Sayings (ed. Daniel) 55 Though your sinnes be daily and quotidian, let not them be deadly. 1603 Harsnet Pop. Impost. xxiii. 158 A Quotidian imaginarie oblation of a Sacrifice. 1635 Quarles Embl. i. xi. (1718) 45 And brazen lungs belch forth quotidian fire. a 1711 Ken Hymns Evang. Poet. Wks. 1721 I. 29 Thence our Quotidian Raptures were begun. 1849 Longfellow Kavanagh xi. 53 Five cats..to receive their quotidian morning's meal. 1861 Thackeray Philip xvi, Every man who wishes to succeed at the bar..must know the quotidian history of his country. |
b. spec. of an intermittent fever or ague, recurring every day. Cf. B. 1.
In early use placed after the n.; cf. quartan.
| 1340 Hampole Pr. Consc. 2987 Som for pride..Sal haf..a fever cotidiene. 1390 Gower Conf. II. 142 A Fievere it is cotidian, Which every day wol come aboute. 1530 Palsgr. 209/1 Cotidien axes, fievre quotidienne. 1561 Hollybush Hom. Apoth. 41 b, Of the dayly ague or fever quotidiane. 1656 Ridgley Pract. Physick 37 In chronical diseases, as Quartane and Quotidian diseases. 1718 Pope Let. to R. Digby 31 Mar., That spirit..which I take to be as familiar to you as a quotidian ague. 1876 tr. Wagner's Gen. Pathol. (ed. 6) 17 If the attack of fever returns every day we have what is called a Quotidian rhythm or type. |
| fig. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VI 177 b, This noble realme..shall never be unbuckeled from her quotidian fever. 1663 Cowley Verses & Ess., Obscurity, We expose our life to a Quotidian Ague of frigid impertinencies. |
| transf. 1723 Cowper in Ld. Campbell Chancellors (1857) V. cxvii. 343 John's drunkenness seems a tertian..except that on Friday it proved quotidian. |
2. Of persons: Performing some act, or sustaining some character, daily. rare.
| 1456 Sir G. Haye Law Arms (S.T.S.) 152 Sa that he be wount..to be cotidiane at Goddis service. 1618 Bolton Florus i. xi. (1636) 31 The æqui and Volscians were..(as I may call them) quotidian enemies. 1714 J. Walker Suffer. Clergy Pref. 37 The weekly writers (and therefore much more the diurnal or quotidian hirelings). |
3. Of an everyday character; ordinary, commonplace, trivial.
| 1461–83 Liber Niger in Househ. Ord. (1790) 61 Not [to] trouble the seyde soveraynes..in smalle accustomed and cotidyan thinges and questions. 1534 Whitinton Tullyes Offices i. (1540) 59 Tully treateth of two maner of speches, the one after the rhetoricyen eloquent, the other quotydian and vulgare. 1625 W. B. True School War 11 So ordinarie and so quotidian procurements of wantonnesse. 1665 J. Spencer Vulg. Proph. 53 Common and quotidian thoughts are beneath the grace of a Verse. a 1763 Shenstone Economy i. 149 To scorn quotidian scenes, to spurn the bliss Of vulgar minds. 1816 W. Taylor in Monthly Mag. XLII. 423 This (adds Wieland) is very quotidian scepticism. 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. III. ii. viii, Pastry-cooks, coffee-sellers, milkmen sing out their trivial quotidian cries. 1978 Studies in Eng. Lit.: Eng. Number (Tokyo) 121 Malory..omits many of the ‘quotidian’ actions of chivalric life. |
B. n.
1. A quotidian fever or ague.
| a 1400 Stockh. Medical MS. ii. 50 in Anglia XVIII. 309 Þat coueryth þe cotidyan mythilyke. c 1400 Rom. Rose 2401 Cotidien, ne quarteyne, It is not so ful of peyne. c 1491 Chast. Goddes Chyld. 21 The fyrst feuere is callid a cotydian. 1547 Boorde Brev. Health cxxxvii. 50 b, In Englyshe it is named a quotidiane the which doth infest a man every daye. 1663 Boyle Usef. Exp. Nat. Philos. ii. v. ix. 211, I myself was strangely cured of a violent quotidian. 1732 Arbuthnot Rules of Diet 324 Tertians sometimes redouble their Paroxysms so as to appear like Quotidians. 1822–34 Good's Stud. Med. (ed. 4) I. 607 The quotidian has a longer interval than the tertian. |
| fig. 1430–40 Lydg. Bochas ix. xxxviii. (1554) 217 Trusting..your liberal largesse Of thys quotidian shall releuen me. 1600 Shakes. A.Y.L. iii. ii. 383 He seemes to haue the Quotidian of Loue vpon him. 1643 Milton Divorce ii. xvi. Wks. (1847) 150/1 A quotidian of sorrow and discontent in his house. |
2. A daily allowance or portion. rare.
| 1828 C. Fry Scripture Reader's Guide vii. 87 The Psalms are..more mechanically chosen for our quotidian of reading than any other part of Scripture. 1894 C. M. Church Chapt. Early Hist. Church of Wells, Bishop Jocelin..increases the quotidians to all members of the Church of St. Andrew in Wells. |
So † quoˈtidianary a. (obs. rare—1); quoˈtidianism.
| 1719 Free-thinker No. 139 ¶3 Quotidianary Words and Actions..do not rise above the Powers of Mechanism. 1920 A. Huxley Limbo 261 ‘It is our cheap press. The ephemeral overwhelms the permanent, the classical.’ ‘This journalism,’ I agreed, ‘or call it rather this piddling quotidianism, is the curse of our age.’ |
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Add: [A.] [3.] b. absol.
| 1965 Listener 28 Jan. 155/3 He treats the bizarre with the same tortured care that many nineteenth-century European writers devoted to the quotidian. 1984 A. Brookner Hotel du Lac iii. 37 The here and now, the quotidian, was beginning to acquire substance. |