Etymology: quarantine

For the next few days I’m going to be doing Word Nerd posts on words related to the current global pandemic, because learning about words helps me process and stay calm.  Our first word, and a suggestion from my friend Keith, is quarantine.

During the Black Plague of mid 1300s, Venice established a 30 day isolation, or in Italian, trenta giorni or, trentino on all ships attempting to make port in order to assure that no one on board was infected.  This was eventually extended to 40 days, quaranta giorni, or quarantino.  From Latin quadraginta, meaning, “forty” and quattuor, meaning, “four,” and further back from the PIE root kwetwer- also meaning, “four.”

Its use as a period of isolation not necessarily related to disease was first recorded in the 1520s and stood for the length of time which a widow had the right to stay in her husband’s house after his death, which was forty days.

Its use as a verb is first recorded in 1804.