Quid
PRONOUN
Meaning and English translation 🔖
Something
🇬🇧 Something indefinite or not easily defined
🇮🇹 Qualche cosa di indeterminato o non facilmente definibile.
Example sentences 💬
C’è in lui un quid che non mi convince.
There is something about him that doesn’t convince me.
Marcello ha quel quid che lo rende più attraente rispetto ai suoi amici.
Marcello has that certain something that makes him more attractive than his friends.
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Where does the word quid come from? 🔎
Quid comes from the Latin neuter pronoun quid, which means "something".
Did you know that... 🤓
Impress your italian friends with curious facts about Italy and its culture
One of the ingredients behind every great story
The Latin phrase “Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando?” literally translates to “who, what, where, with what means, why, how, when?”.
This phrase written by Cicero in his treatise Rhetoricorum, seu De inventione rhetorica, contains the fundamental criteria for literary composition.
But what do these terms mean exactly?
- Quis → Who performs the action.
- Quid → What is being done.
- Ubi → Where the action takes place.
- Quibus auxiliis → With what means the action is performed.
- Cur → Why the action is performed.
- Quomodo → How the action is carried out.
- Quando → When the action takes place.
The Anglo-Saxon modern journalism has adopted this formula as the "Rule of the 5 Ws": Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?
Even though languages and contexts have changed, the fundamental principles of storytelling remain the same.
