quine
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quine¹
- /kwaɪn/ US, UK
Rhymes with -aɪn
Where it comes from
From Quine, named after the American logician and philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000).
Verb etymology 1, verb sense 1 (“to append (a text) to a quotation of itself”) was coined by the American cognitive and computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter (born 1945) in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979; see the quotation), referring to Quine’s study of indirect self-reference and in particular Quine’s paradox, the following statement that produces a paradox: “‘Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation’ yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.” Hofstadter also referred to the concept of noun etymology 1, noun sense 1 (“program that produces its own source code as output”) in the book, but termed it a self-rep rather than a quine.
Verb etymology 1, verb sense 2 (“to deny the importance or significance of (something obviously real or important)”) was independently coined by the American cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett (1942–2024) in September 1969 in the original version of his work The Philosophical Lexicon: see the 1987 quotation.
noun quines
- A program that produces its own source code as output. This has been bugging me recently. Any quines or pointers to relevant articles or web pages is appreciated. Thanks!
verb quines · quining · quined
- To append (a text) to a quotation of itself. Anyway, now I know how to quine a phrase. It's quite amusing. Here's a quined phrase: / "IS A SENTENCE FRAGMENT" IS A SENTENCE FRAGMENT. / It's silly but all the same I enjoy it. You take a sentence fragment, quine it, and lo and behold, you've made a sentence! A true sentence, in this case.
- To deny the existence or significance of (something obviously real or important). quine. v. (1) To deny resolutely the existence or importance of something real or significant. "Some philosophers have quined classes, and some have even quined physical objects." Occasionally used intr[ansitively], e.g., "You think I quine, sir. I assure you I do not!"
quine²
- /kwaɪn/ US, UK
Rhymes with -aɪn
Where it comes from
PIE word
*pénkʷe
Learned borrowing from Latin quīnī (“five at a time; five together”), a plural form of quīnus (“five at a time; five each”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe (“five; hand”).
adjective
- Of leaves: arranged in whorls of five.
Quine³
Where it comes from
From Manx Quine.
proper noun Quines
- A surname from Manx.
Translations
Every language
noun program that outputs its own source code
| Deutsch | Quine |
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Talk about this word "quine." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/quine. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. quine. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/quine "quine." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/quine.Cite this
@misc{quine_2026,
title = {quine},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/quine},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
