# English: Quasi



## shaloo

Hello all 

I was wondering about the origin of this word which in English means almost (Ref: WR)

Im guessing it could be Arabic, but I'm not very sure if I'm right.

Can anybody clarify??

Thank you!


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## Hulalessar

Not Arabic, but Latin meaning "as if".


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## J.F. de TROYES

Yes. Its a Latin conjonction (as if ) or adverb ( so to speak, about ) which comes from _qua(m) + si ._


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## shaloo

wow... thank you both for the explanation


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## dinji

The word is common in Romance as well. For example in Catalan it occurs exactly in the form _quasi_ (=Castilian: casi). Are these borrowings from Latin as well or could the Latin word have been so well genetically preserved intact??


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## effeundici

In Italian *almost *is *quasi *and it's simply the Latin word which has remained intact for 2000 years

Actually WR dictionary says that _quasi _comes from Italian and not from Latin.


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## Outsider

It does indeed. Interestingly, though, in most of the compound examples they give, Italian uses the prefix _semi_- where English has _quasi_-.


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## effeundici

Outsider said:


> It does indeed. Interestingly, though, in most of the compound examples they give, Italian uses the prefix _semi_- where English has _quasi_-.


 
_Semi _is 50%, _quasi, _say, 90%


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## origumi

effeundici said:


> Actually WR dictionary says that _quasi _comes from Italian and not from Latin.


 
According to _Merriam Webster_ and the _Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_, English quasi- (the prefix) is from Latin.


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## effeundici

origumi said:


> According to _Merriam Webster_ and the _Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_, English quasi- (the prefix) is from Latin.


 
Mmmhhh, I would be more in favour of Italian, of course thorugh musical terms like _piano, pianissimo, andante, _


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## Hulalessar

There is no doubt that _quasi_ is a Latin word meaning_ just as_, _as if_, _as it were_, _a sort of_, and _about._ It was not used as a combining form as it is in English. The fact that it survives intact in French and Italian leads to some doubt as to whether it came into English from either of those languages or direct from Latin. I think that Italian can be discounted even though the word is used in musical terms. One dictionary suggests the word came into English via Old French. Whether that is the case or not, I suspect that some of the combined forms were created in the belief that it was a Latin word that was being used.

We can say for certain that Cicero used it and that it is not Arabic.


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## Polpo_D

origumi said:


> According to _Merriam Webster_ and the _Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_, English quasi- (the prefix) is from Latin.




If it came to English from Italian it would still be of Latin origin, maybe this is a possible reason why MW & COD list it as such.


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## King Crimson

It surely comes from Latin (Hi Polpo), as it was explained in post #3 (and also confirmed by the Dizionario Etimologico), so in my opinion it is irrelevant whether it came into English trough Italian or Old French.


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## CapnPrep

King Crimson said:


> It surely comes from Latin (Hi Polpo), as it was explained in post #3 (and also confirmed by the Dizionario Etimologico), so in my opinion it is irrelevant whether it came into English trough Italian or Old French.


It's irrelevant in the sense that all of etymology is irrelevant, but within the discipline, this sort of question is of fundamental importance…


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## King Crimson

CapnPrep said:


> It's irrelevant in the sense that all of etymology is irrelevant, but within the discipline, this sort of question is of fundamental importance…



Actually I was replying to the OP, which asked just for the origin of the word, which is Latin, so, in that sense, I meant it was irrelevant what happened afterwards. But then another poster (in #11) inquired about how the term came into English and in this case I agree with you it's not at all irrelevant.
Sorry if I hadn't made it clear


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