Sunday Word: Quotidian
quotidian [ kwoh-tid-ee-uhn]
adjective:
1 Everyday; commonplace
2 Recurring daily
Examples:
He explained that the new philosophy gives a fresh perspective on the quotidian moments dismissed, highlighting how these shared mundane experiences should be cherished. (Coca-Cola introduces new global brand philosophy 4 years after, Nigerian Tribune, September 2021)
Her home turf were the streets and garbage-filled empty lots of a Paris just then emerging from decades of war and poverty. A boy and girl pumping water from an alley well; a horse bucking in a snow-strewn field; an aged couple burying their pet dog - moments like these, at once quotidian and profoundly moving, were her stock in trade. (Clay Risen, Sabine Weiss, Last of the 'Humanist' Street Photographers, Dies at 97, The New York Times, January 2022)
It's a simple, unremarkable moment in a movie set to the quotidian rhythms of communal life, but it also reveals something of Sotomayor’s methods. (Justin Chang, Moving 'Too Late to Die Young' opens a window on a lost Chilean summer, The San Diego Union-Tribune, June 2019)
Outlets that produce modern paragraph-style recipes lean away from this parental instinct, instead acknowledging the independence of home cooks and the quotidian realities that prevent them from prioritizing cooking. (Before No-Recipe Cooking, There Was Mrs Levy, Eater, February 2021)
Time moved for you not in quotidian beats, But in the long slow rhythm the ages keep In their immortal symphony. (Aldous Huxley, The Burning Wheel)
Origin:
mid-14c, coitidian, 'daily, occurring or returning daily,' from Old French cotidiien (Modern French quotidien), from Latin cottidianus, quotidianus 'daily,' from Latin quotus 'how many? which in order or number?' (from PIE root kwo-, stem of relative and interrogative pronouns) + dies 'day' (from PIE root dyeu- 'to shine'). The qu- spelling in English dates from 16c. Meaning 'ordinary, commonplace, trivial' is from mid-15c. Quotidian fever 'intermittent fever' is from late 14c. The noun meaning 'something that returns or is expected every day' is from c 1400, originally of fevers. (Online Etymology Dictionary)
In William Shakespeare's play As You Like It, the character Rosalind observes that Orlando, who has been running about in the woods carving her name on trees and hanging love poems on branches, 'seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.' The Bard's use doesn't make it clear that quotidian derives from a Latin word that means 'every day.' But as odd as it may seem, his use of quotidian is just a short semantic step away from the 'daily' adjective sense. Some fevers occur intermittently-sometimes daily. The phrase 'quotidian fever' and the noun quotidian have long been used for such recurring maladies. Poor Orlando is simply afflicted with such a 'fever' of love. (Merriam-Webster)