Sinograph Addenda · Signs

云quoth · yún · to say (introducing a quotation)

quoth

Where it comes from

The original cloud pictographan early sign that is still simply a picture of the thing it means — curling vapor under a level sky; the reading is classic. Borrowed early for the quotative verb, it kept the job so firmly that clouds had to take a rain roof (雲) to stay distinct. 曰say · yuē · to say — the quotation-opener of the classical books speaks in a person’s own voice; 云quoth · yún · to say (introducing a quotation) hands over someone else’s — the Songs say, the Book says. Taught in the one-who chapter.

How to remember it

Words drift in from elsewhere like a cloud: quoth.

In the wild