quintal

See also: Quintal

English

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkwɪntl/, /ˈkwɪnl/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkwɪntl/, /ˈkwɪntəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: (Received Pronunciation) -ɪntəl

Alternative forms

• quintale (chiefly Italian contexts)
• kintal, kintle, kantal, kental, kentle (dialectical)
• quintell, quintall, quintaile, quintail, kyntal, kyntall, kyntayl, kintall, kyntal, kentall, kentell (obsolete)

Etymology 1

Late Middle English, from Anglo-Norman quintal, from Middle French quintal, from Old French and Medieval Latin quintale and quintallus (“various medieval hundredweights”), from Arabic قِنْطَار (qinṭār, “100 rottols”), from Classical Syriac ܩܰܢܛܺܝܪܳܐ (qanṭīrā) and ܩܰܢܛܺܝܢܳܪܳܐ (qanṭīnārā), from Byzantine Greek κεντηνάριον (kentēnárion), from Latin centēnārium (“100 Roman pounds”), from the neuter of centēnārius (“having 100 things”). Use for various non-English units, borrowed from French quintal, Spanish quintal, Portuguese quintal, etc. The apparent relation to quint- (“five, fivefold”) and -al (forming adjectives) is accidental, although it possibly influenced the eventual spelling of the term. Doublet of centenary and kantar.

Noun

quintal (plural quintals)

1. (historical) Synonym of hundredweight, 100 or 112 English or American pounds.
   • 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 204:

     In one import license alone, the merchant in question was instructed to bring in 13,000 quintals of alum, which, snapped up by industries in England and the Low Countries, would yield the king a cool £8,666 13s 4d.

2. (historical) Various other similar units of weight in other systems.
3. An unofficial metric unit equal to 100 kg.

Usage notes

Historically, the value varied with local values of pounds by time, location, and substance. At the time of metricization, the French quintal was 49.951 kg, the Portuguese quintal was 58.75 kg, the Spanish quintal was 46.014 kg, and the Milanese quintal was 32.67 kg. The present metric quintal is not officially recognized as part of the metric system.

Coordinate terms

• (Spanish unit of mass): libra (¹⁄₁₀₀ quintal), arroba (¹⁄₄ quintal), tonelada (20 quintals)
• (Portuguese unit of mass): arratel (¹⁄₁₂₈ quintal), arroba (¹⁄₄ quintal), quintalejo (¹⁄₂ quintal), tonelada (13+¹⁄₂ quintals)

Derived terms

• metric quintal

Translations

quintal of about 100 pounds in various systems — see hundredweight

metric quintal of 100 kg

• Armenian: ցենտներ (hy) (cʻentner)
• Basque: kintal (eu)
• Bengali: কুইন্টাল (bn) (kuinṭal)
• Bulgarian: центнер m (centner)
• Catalan: quintar (ca) m
• Finnish: sentaali (fi)
• French: quintal (fr) m
• Galician: quintal
• German: Quintal (de) m, Doppelzentner (de) m (Germany), Zentner (de) m (Austria, Switzerland), Dezitonne (de) f
• Hindi: क्विंटल m (kviṇṭal), कुंटल (hi) m (kuṇṭal), कुंतल (hi) m (kuntal)
• Hungarian: mázsa (hu)
• Italian: quintale (it) m
• Marathi: क्विंटल m (kviṇṭal)
• Norman: tchînta m
• Portuguese: quintal (pt)
• Romanian: chintal (ro) n
• Russian: це́нтнер (ru) m (céntner)
• Spanish: quintal métrico (es) m, quintal (es) m
• Turkish: kental (tr)
• Volapük: kuin (vo)

Etymology 2

From quint- (“five, fivefold”) + -al (forming adjectives).

Noun

quintal (plural quintals)

1. (grammar) A grammatical number referring to five (or more) things.
   • 2002, Kearsy Annette Cormier, Grammaticization of Indexic Signs: How American Sign Language Expresses Numerosity, page 69:

     Furthermore, if the number-incorporated pronouns are analyzed as grammatically marked for number, distinct grammatical categories for trial, quadral and quintal must be posited.

   • 2014, Sam Lutalo-Kiingi, A Descriptive Grammar of Morphosyntactic Constructions in Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL), page 198:

     In UgSL, we find a complete set of forms for dual, trial, quadral and quintal in several paradigmatic contrasts.

   • 2023, Raquel Veiga Busto, Person and Number: An Empirical Study of Catalan Sign Language Pronouns, page 164:

     All in all, this suggests that in LSC the differences observed in the motion taken by exact number pronouns is not grounded in a fundamental distinction between the dual vs. the trial, the quadral and the quintal.

Adjective

quintal (not comparable)

1. (grammar) Referring to five (or more) things; of, in or relating to the quintal grammatical number.
   • 1995, John W. M. Verhaar, Toward a Reference Grammar of Tok Pisin: An Experiment in Corpus Linguistics, page 20:

     What Table 4 does not show is the possibility of even "quadral" and "quintal" forms, like yufopela 'you four', 'the four of you', yufaipela 'you five', 'the five of you'.

   • 2014, Sam Lutalo-Kiingi, A Descriptive Grammar of Morphosyntactic Constructions in Ugandan Sign Language (UgSL), page 198:

     In sign languages, on the other hand, trial, quadral and quintal forms such as found in UgSL are not uncommon.

   • 2023, Raquel Veiga Busto, Person and Number: An Empirical Study of Catalan Sign Language Pronouns, page 102:

     Moreover, trial, quadral and quintal forms are given an identical status as number values in the pronominal domain.

Usage notes

• It has been contested whether this grammatical phenomenon exists in human languages. If it does, it is almost entirely confined to sign languages. See also Grammatical number.

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

See also

• (grammatical numbers) grammatical number; singular, dual, trial, quadral, quintal, paucal, plural ^{(Category: en:Grammar)}

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French quintal, from Medieval Latin quintāle (“various medieval hundredweights”), from Arabic قِنْطَار (qinṭār, “100 rottols”), from Classical Syriac ܩܰܢܛܺܝܪܳܐ (qanṭīrā) and ܩܰܢܛܺܝܢܳܪܳܐ (qanṭīnārā), from Byzantine Greek κεντηνάριον (kentēnárion), from Latin centēnārium (“100 Roman pounds”), from centēnī (“100 things”) + -ārius (“-ary”, forming related adjective). Doublet of centenaire.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɛ̃.tal/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

quintal m (plural quintaux)

1. quintal, a nonstandard metric unit of mass equivalent to exactly 100 kg
2. (historical) quintal, French hundredweight, a traditional unit of mass equivalent to about 49.95 kg

Further reading

• “quintal”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French quintal, from Medieval Latin quintāle (“various medieval hundredweights”), from Arabic قِنْطَار (qinṭār, “100 rottols”), from Classical Syriac ܩܰܢܛܺܝܪܳܐ (qanṭīrā) and ܩܰܢܛܺܝܢܳܪܳܐ (qanṭīnārā), from Byzantine Greek κεντηνάριον (kentēnárion), from Latin centēnārium (“100 Roman pounds”), from centēnī (“100 things”) + -ārius (“-ary”, forming related adjectives).

Noun

quintal m (plural quintaulx)

1. (historical) quintal, French hundredweight, a traditional unit of mass

Descendants

• French: quintal

Old French

Etymology

From Medieval Latin quintāle (“various medieval hundredweights”), from Arabic قِنْطَار (qinṭār, “100 rottols”), from Classical Syriac ܩܰܢܛܺܝܪܳܐ (qanṭīrā) and ܩܰܢܛܺܝܢܳܪܳܐ (qanṭīnārā), from Byzantine Greek κεντηνάριον (kentēnárion), from Latin centēnārium (“100 Roman pounds”), from centēnī (“100 things”) + -ārius (“-ary”, forming related adjectives).

Noun

quintal oblique singular, m (oblique plural quintaus or quintax or quintals, nominative singular quintaus or quintax or quintals, nominative plural quintal)

1. (historical) quintal, French hundredweight, a traditional unit of mass

Descendants

• Middle French: quintal
  • French: quintal
• → Middle English: quintal
  • English: quintal

Portuguese

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /kĩˈtaw/ [kĩˈtaʊ̯]

 

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /kĩˈtal/ [kĩˈtaɫ]

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /kĩˈtal/ [kĩˈtaɫ]
  • (Southern Portugal) IPA^(key): /kĩˈta.li/

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -al, (Brazil) -aw
• Hyphenation: quin‧tal

Etymology 1

Inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese quintãal, from Vulgar Latin *quintanālem; equivalent to quinta +‎ -al.

Noun

quintal m (plural quintais)

1. yard (land with vegetable garden, next to a house)
2. small farm
3. courtyard

Etymology 2

From Medieval Latin quintāle (“various medieval hundredweights”), from Andalusian Arabic and Arabic قِنْطَار (qinṭār, “100 rottols”), from Classical Syriac ܩܰܢܛܺܝܪܳܐ (qanṭīrā) and ܩܰܢܛܺܝܢܳܪܳܐ (qanṭīnārā), from Byzantine Greek κεντηνάριον (kentēnárion), from Latin centēnārium (“100 Roman pounds”). Doublet of centenário.

Noun

quintal m (plural quintais)

1. quintal, a nonstandard unit of mass equal to 100 kg
2. (historical) quintal, Portuguese hundredweight, a traditional unit of mass usually equivalent to 58.7 kg

Synonyms

• (metric unit): quintal métrico

Coordinate terms

• (historical unit): arrátel (¹⁄₁₂₈ quintal), arroba (¹⁄₄ quintal), quintalejo (¹⁄₂ quintal), tonelada (13+¹⁄₂ quintals)

Derived terms

• quintalejo, quintal métrico

Spanish

Alternative forms

• qq (abbreviation)

Etymology

Borrowed from Medieval Latin quintāle (“various medieval hundredweights”), from Andalusian Arabic and Arabic قِنْطَار (qinṭār, “100 rottols”), from Classical Syriac ܩܰܢܛܺܝܪܳܐ (qanṭīrā) and ܩܰܢܛܺܝܢܳܪܳܐ (qanṭīnārā), from Byzantine Greek κεντηνάριον (kentēnárion), from Latin centēnārium (“100 Roman pounds”), from centēnī (“100 things”) + -ārius (“-ary”, forming related adjectives). Doublet of centenario.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kinˈtal/ [kĩn̪ˈt̪al]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: quin‧tal

Noun

quintal m (plural quintales)

1. quintal (an unofficial metric unit of mass equal to exactly 100 kg)
2. (chiefly historical) quintal, Spanish hundredweight (a traditional unit of mass equivalent to about 46 kg)

Usage notes

• Historically, the quintal varied by region, over time, and depending on the object being measured.

Derived terms

• quintal métrico

 

Related terms

• centena

 

Descendants

• Zoogocho Zapotec: quintal

Further reading

• “quintal”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10

Zoogocho Zapotec

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish quintal.

Noun

quintal

1. hundredweight

References

• Long C., Rebecca, Cruz M., Sofronio (2000) Diccionario zapoteco de San Bartolomé Zoogocho, Oaxaca (Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves”; 38)‎^[1] (in Spanish), second electronic edition, Coyoacán, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C., page 286