quisquam

Latin

Etymology

From quis +‎ quam (“any”). Compare to quisque.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈkʷis.kʷam/, [ˈkʷɪs̠kʷä̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkwis.kwam/, [ˈkwiskwäm]

Pronoun

quisquam (neuter quidquam or quicquam); relative/interrogative pronoun with an indeclinable portion

1. (masculine, chiefly in the negative) anyone
   • c. 52 BCE, Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 7.28.4.1:

     nec fuit quisquam qui praedae studeret.

     and there was not anyone who gave attention to spoils.

   • Plautus, Bacchides. In: Plautus with an English translation by Paul Nixon, vol. I of five volumes, 1916, p. 330f.:

     ne a quoquam acciperes alio mercedem annuam, nisi ab sese, nec cum quiquam limares caput.

     Not to let you take a yearly fee from anyone else but him, or rub heads with anyone.

2. (neuter, chiefly in the negative) anything
   • 70 BCE, Cicero, In Verrem 2.4.48.8:

     Qui cum in convivium venisset, si quicquam caelati aspexerat, manus abstinere, iudices, non poterat.

     When he came to a banquet, if he saw anything engraved, he could not keep his hands off, judges.

Usage notes

• The negative polarity counterpart of nēmō (“nobody”) and nihil (“nothing”). Typically used in clauses that contain a preceding negative word, often the conjunction nec/neque. In Classical Latin, "nec quisquam" was preferred over "et nēmō". Like other negative polarity items, quisquam can also occur with no preceding negative word in certain contexts, possibly connected by the concept of downward entailment. Other words that can licence its use include vix (“scarcely”) and sine (“without”). It it also used with comparatives. It can be used in conditional or interrogative clauses, but its usage here can overlap with other pronouns, especially the indefinite pronoun quis. After sī, nē, num, an, it is more usual to find quis, but quisquam can also occur; it may have a more emphatic sense "any at all" or "any whatsoever". Quisquam is not used in nisi-clauses.
• Like other pronouns, it may take a partitive genitive. The neuter may be used with the genitive singular of a neuter second-declension adjective, e.g. quicquam mali 'anything wrong', or with an agreeing adjective, as in quicquam bonum 'anything good'.
• The forms in the column labeled "Masc./Fem." are typically used as an indefinite pronoun that takes masculine grammatical agreement but has a generic sense that encompasses anyone regardless of sex. The masculine gender is often used in Latin as a default when referring to persons of unknown gender; compare the masculine interrogative pronoun quis (“who?”) and negative pronoun nēmō (“nobody”).
• Notes on forms by gender and number:
  • Grammatically feminine forms of this pronoun are rare and very poorly attested in Classical Latin. To express its sense in the feminine, forms of ūllus such as ūlla, ūllam, etc. could be used instead (see Citations:ullus). There are examples of the nominative quisquam and accusative quemquam being used as feminine pronouns by the anteclassical poets Plautus and Terence (see Citations:quisquam). Alternative, exclusively feminine forms quaequam (nom. sg.) and quamquam (acc. sg.) are mentioned by postclassical grammarians and attested in postclassical texts; however, in the Classical Latin corpus, these forms are unattested as pronouns and scarcely attested as adjectives (see below and see Citations:quaequam). Compare the use of quae and quam as feminine interrogative pronouns (versus the anteclassical use of quis and quem in this function). No feminine ablative singular form seems to be attested in Classical Latin outside of adverbial use of quāquam (compare the adverb quā) as part of the expressions haud/haut quāquam = haudquāquam and nec quāquam = nēquāquam (or in "negas nuptam quaquam" in Pomponius as cited by Charisius).
  • For the neuter pronoun, the only form in common use is nominative/accusative quidquam/quicquam. (The forms cuiusquam, cuiquam, quōquam are occasionally used as adjectival modifiers of neuter nouns, but are usually masculine rather than neuter when used by themselves as pronouns.) To express the sense of the neuter pronoun in the genitive, dative and ablative, the periphrastic expressions ūllī̆us reī, ūllī reī, and ūllā rē may be used (compare how nūllī̆us reī, nūllī reī, and nūllā rē function as suppletive genitive, dative and ablative forms of the indeclinable pronoun nihil (“nothing”)), as in "sūmptū nē parcās ūllā in rē, quod ad valētūdinem opus sit" (Cicero Epistulae ad Familiares 16.4.2.8).
  • For the masculine pronoun, the genitive singular cuiusquam is frequent, but ūllī̆us can optionally be used instead. The masculine ablative singular form quōquam is attested as a pronoun in Classical Latin (see Citations:quoquam), but is relatively rare (the form quōquam is more often an adverb). As an alternative, ūllō can be used instead (see Citations:ullus; compare the common use of nūllō in place of nēmine.) An alternative masculine ablative singular form quīquam is found in Plautus and possibly also in Apuleius (see Citations:quiquam).
  • Plural forms are unattested in Classical Latin, as with the corresponding negative pronouns nēmō (“nobody”) and nihil (“nothing”). The 4th-century grammarian Charisius says the plural is not used: "unum autem adest quam semper singulare. non enim ut quisquam quemquam, sic utique quiquam quosquam dicimus" (Charisius 2, 7). Forms of ūllus may be used in place of the unused plural forms.

Declension

Negative polarity indefinite pronoun.

	singular
	masc./fem.	neuter
nominative	quisquam	quidquam quicquam
genitive	cuiusquam1
dative	cuiquam1
accusative	quemquam	quidquam quicquam
ablative	quōquam quīquam

¹In Republican Latin or earlier, alternative spellings could be found for the following forms of quī/quis and its compounds: the masculine nominative singular or plural quī (old spelling quei), the genitive singular cuius (old spelling quoius), the dative singular cui (old spelling quoi or quoiei), the dative/ablative plural quīs (old spelling queis).

In practice, forms other than quidquam/quicquam are almost always non-neuter when used as pronouns (and usually grammatically masculine, but in most cases can semantically include any human being regardless of gender); see usage notes. Considered purely in terms of form, cuiusquam, cuiquam, quīquam are theoretically unmarked for grammatical gender, quisquam and quemquam are theoretically marked as non-neuter (i.e masculine or feminine), and quōquam is theoretically marked as non-feminine (i.e. masculine or neuter).

Adjective

quisquam (feminine quaequam, neuter quodquam); relative/interrogative pronoun with an indeclinable portion

1. (chiefly in the negative) any

   Synonym: ūllus

   • 68 BCE – 44 BCE, Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum 9.6.5.8:

     Quid tu autem possis, aut quid homo quisquam?

     • 1913 translation by E.O. Winstedt

       Yet what could you or any man do?

Usage notes

Depending on the number, gender, case, and meaning of the accompanying noun, forms of the synonymous adjective ūllus (“any”) may be preferred instead. In Classical Latin, only singular forms of quisquam are securely attested; when used adjectivally, it appears mostly in combination with masculine nouns that denote persons, such as homō (“man”) or scrīptor (“writer”) (compare the use of nēmō (“nobody”) as a modifier of a singular personal noun). There are also some attested uses with masculine, feminine or neuter nouns that refer collectively to a group of people, or rarely, with nouns that denote impersonal things.

Classical Latin usage can be summarized as follows:

• Nominative and accusative forms:
  • Masculine: In the nominative case, Cicero seems to have preferred quisquam over ūllus in combination with personal masculine nouns (e.g. quisquam scrīptor), whereas in the accusative case he used both quemquam and ūllum in this context (e.g. quemquam scrīptōrem, ūllum scrīptōrem). With an impersonal masculine noun, the use of quisquam or quemquam rather than ūllus/ūllum is uncommon, but is found several times in Lucretius's poem De Rerum Natura and is sporadically attested in other authors (see Citations:quisquam).
  • Feminine nominative and accusative forms are unattested in Classical Latin, with the single possible exception of quamquam in "ad quamquam rem" in the Epistulae of Seneca the Younger. The nominative form quaequam seems to be attested only in postclassical Latin. See Citations:quaequam. Usually ūlla and ūllam are used instead in combination with feminine nouns, whether personal or impersonal (see Citations:ullus). In the anteclassical poet Plautus, the forms quisquam and quemquam can be found with feminine nouns, generally personal or animate ones (e.g. "quisquam alia mulier"; see Citations:quisquam).
  • Neuter nominative/accusative forms are unattested in Classical Latin: usually ūllum is used instead in combination with neuter nouns. The form quodquam is attested only in postclassical Latin (see Citations:quodquam). The form quidquam/quicquam is typically used as a pronoun, but in Plautus, there are two attestations of "quicquam facinus", with "quicquam" used as an adjective or in apposition with an accompanying noun (compare the use of quidquid as an adjective).
• The genitive and dative forms cuiusquam and cuiquam seem to have been preferred by Cicero over ūllī̆us and ūllī in combination with a personal masculine noun (i.e. cuiusquam scrīptōris, cuiquam scrīptōrī). Cuiusquam and cuiquam are also attested in combination with feminine and neuter nouns in classical Latin, although rarely (see Citations:quisquam).
• In the ablative, it seems to have been preferred in Classical Latin to use forms of ūllus (ūllō m or n, ūllā f) instead, even in combination with personal masculine nouns. Quōquam is attested once in combination with a masculine noun in Cicero ("homine quoquam", Pro Roscio Amerino 74.14; contrast with "homine ullo", Pro S. Roscio Amerino 96.6, Pro Cluentio 152.9 and "ullo homine", Pro Ligario 26.5, Epistulae ad Atticum 1.20.1.11) and once in combination with a neuter noun in Suetonius ("quoquam incepto", Divus Julius 59.1). There are numerous additional examples of quōquam as a masculine or neuter adjective in the works of postclassical authors such as Augustine of Hippo. See Citations:quoquam. In Plautus, the alternative ablative singular form quīquam is attested in combination with masculine nouns ("quiquam homine", "quiquam viro"; see Citations:quiquam).

A full declensional paradigm with feminine singular quaequam, quamquam, quāquam, neuter singular quodquam, and plural forms is given by the late grammatical texts Instituta artium (attributed to a 'Probus', but its author cannot be the grammarian Marcus Valerius Probus) and Ars grammatica by Diomedes Grammaticus. Some of these forms (such as quaequam, quāquam, quodquam) have attested use in postclassical Latin, while others (such as the vocative forms these authors list) may be purely theoretical.

Declension

Negative polarity indefinite determiner.

	singular				plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	quisquam	quaequam1 quisquam2	quodquam1		quīquam1	quaequam1
genitive	cuiusquam				quōrumquam1	quārumquam1	quōrumquam1
dative	cuiquam				quibusquam1
accusative	quemquam	quamquam3 quemquam2	quodquam1		quōsquam1	quāsquam1	quaequam1
ablative	quōquam4 quīquam2	quāquam1	quōquam4		quibusquam1
vocative	quisquam1	quaequam1	quodquam1		quīquam1	quaequam1

¹Only attested in postclassical Latin. In Classical Latin, forms of ūllus were used instead.
²Only attested as a feminine form in the preclassical Latin of authors like Plautus.
³Attested only once in Classical Latin. Usually ūllam was used instead.
⁴Attested, but rare in Classical Latin. Usually ūllō was used instead.

Derived terms

• nēquīquam

Related terms

• nēquāquam
• haudquāquam

Latin correlatives ^(edit)

type	demonstrative			anaphoric	identity	interrogative/ relative	indefinite					negative	other
	proximal	medial	distal				relative	indefinite	free choice	universal	negative polarity
basic	hic	iste, istic	ille, illic	is	ipse, īdem	quis/quī	quisquis, quīcumque	quis, quī, quīdam, aliquis, aliquī, quispiam	quīvis, quīlibet	quisque	quisquam, ūllus, °aliquisquam	nēmō, nihil, nūllus	alius
dual						uter	utercumque	alteruter	utervīs, uterlibet	uterque		neuter	alter
place	hīc	istīc	illīc	ibī̆	ibī̆dem	ubī̆	ubiubi, ubī̆cumque	alicubī, uspiam	ubivīs, ubilibet	ubīque	usquam	nusquam, nūllibī	alibī, aliās
source	hinc	istinc	illinc	inde	indidem	unde	undecumque, undeunde	alicunde	°undelibet	undique			aliunde
destination	hūc, °hōrsum	istūc, °istōrsum	illūc, °illōrsum	eō	eōdem	quō, quōrsum	quōquō, quōcumque	aliquō, quōpiam, °aliquōvorsum	quōvīs, quōlibet		quōquam	nusquam, nūllōrsum	aliō, aliōrsum
method, means, path, place	hāc	istāc	illāc	eā	eādem	quā	quāquā, quācumque	aliquā	quāvīs, quālibet	quāque		nēquāquam, haudquāquam	aliā
manner	hōc modō	istō modō	illō modō	ita, sīc, eō modō	item, itidem	ut, quī, quō modō, quōmodo, quemadmodum	utut, utcumque, quōmodocumque	quī, quōdam modō, aliquō modō	quōmodolibet	utīque	ūllō modō	nūllō modō	aliter, aliōquī, alterō/aliō modō
time	num, nunc		ōlim	tum, tunc	simul	quandō, ‡cum	cumque, quandōcumque, quandōque	quondam, aliquandō	quandōlibet	quandōque	umquam	numquam	aliās
quantity				tam	†tamen, †tandem	quam	†quamquam	aliquam	quamvīs, quamlibet
size				tantus	tantusdem	quantus	quantuscumque	aliquantus	quantusvīs, quantuslibet
quality				tālis		quālis	quālis, quāliscumque	aliquālis	quālislibet
number				tot	totidem	quot	quotquot, quotcumque	aliquot	quotlibet
order				totus		quotus	quotuscumque	aliquotus	quotuslibet
repetition				totiēns		quotiēns	quotiēnscumque	aliquotiēns	quotiēnslibet
multiplication				totuplex		quotuplex
† Turned conjunction with original meaning somewhat dissimulated ° Rare ‡only used as a conjunction, not as an interrogative

Further reading

• “quisquam”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• quisquam in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• quisquam in Ramminger, Johann (2016 July 16 (last accessed)) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎^[2], pre-publication website, 2005-2016