quotient
/ˈkwəʊʃ(ə)nt
/noun
1 Mathematics A result obtained by dividing one quantity by another.By examining the limits of sums, products and quotients of variable quantities, Mengoli was setting up the basic rules if the calculus thirty years before Newton and Leibniz....
- His favourite topics in number theory included binary quadratic forms, quadratic residues, Gauss sums and Fermat quotients.
- Why is the quotient of a number divided by zero infinity?
2A degree or amount of a specified quality or characteristic: the increase in Washington’s cynicism quotient...
- These seem, if anything, to have reinforced a sense of distance from it - an antipathy without his usual quotient of curiosity.
- In minutes, his sick printer was back on its feet, gobbling up its usual quotient of ink cartridges.
- But this year the copycat quotient is off the scale.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Latin quotiens 'how many times' (from quot 'how many'), by confusion with participial forms ending in -ens, -ent-.