Talk:quater

(in prescriptions) four times

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English --Backinstadiums (talk) 13:22, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

RFV discussion: August 2019–February 2021

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

quater

Rfv-sense quăter , adv. num. quattuor, I.four times: “quater in anno pariunt,” Varr. R. R. 3, 10; Verg. A. 2, 242; Hor. S. 2, 3, 1.—With other numerals: “quater quinis minis,” Plaut. Ps. 1, 3, 111: “quater deni,” forty, Ov. M. 7, 293: “quater decies,” fourteen times, Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 39, § 100: “quater centies,” Vitr. 10, 14. —Freq. in phrase: ter et quater, ter aut quater, or terque quaterque, three and (or) four times, i. e. over and over again, often, extremely: “ter et quater Anno revisens aequor,” Hor. C. 1, 31, 13: “corvi presso ter gutture voces Aut quater ingeminant,” Verg. G. 1, 410: “terque quaterque solum scindendum,” id. ib. 2, 399: “terque quaterque beati,” id. A. 1, 94: “o mihi felicem terque quaterque diem,” Tib. 3, 3, 26. — This unsigned comment was added by 87.11.204.161 (talk) at 10:14, 17 August 2019 (UTC).

The gloss “often” seems to derive from idioms like the phrases you have mentioned. It can be used liberally in poetry as numbers often, and while it can be appropriate to translate such things with “dreimal und öfter” and the like, it is not appropriate to gloss it like that. quater means “four times” and not “many times”, period. “Four” does not mean “often”, nothing to argue here, I will delete that gloss it right away, well following it having RFV-sense tag since 1 June 2019‎, anyway. If somebody goes over to adding senses “many” to English numbers like “twenty” or “several” to “six” based on poetical expressions or contexts where the exact value is not relevant we would declare him insane. Fay Freak (talk) 23:31, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

We had an entry 77 times defined as “An unlimited number”, but the entry has been deleted, together with the history record revealing its insane creator.  --Lambiam 12:07, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Actually, it was an IP from Quincy College.  --Lambiam 12:10, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Closed, the meaning in question has been deleted. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 21:59, 10 February 2021 (UTC)