GRAPH-WIDE SEARCH
MEASURE THE GRAPH ↗NOT JUST A DICTIONARY LOOKUP
6 EVIDENCE COLLECTIONSSEARCH
THE GRAPH.
Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
011
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
021
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
033
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 2
openproposedexact word
Why forty?
Religious symbolism, inherited medical theory, logistics, and observation have all been proposed; no single motivation is treated as proven here.
resolvedestablishedexact word
Was the first quarantine forty days?
No. Dubrovnik’s 1377 law required thirty days; the interval was later extended to forty, which supplied the enduring name.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 1
RANK 177GRADE Aexact ranked word
Quarantine is literally a period of forty.
The public-health sense preserves Italian quaranta: forty.
043
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
historical dictionary3 CLAIM LINKS
Quarantine — Word History
Merriam-Webster Editors / 2026
title prefixAUDIT EVERY USE ↗journal article5 CLAIM LINKS
A Brief Biological History of Quarantine: Modern use of an ancient tool
Lesley Evans Ogden / 2021
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗journal article5 CLAIM LINKS
Etymologia: Quarantine
Emerging Infectious Diseases Editors / 2013
source titleAUDIT EVERY USE ↗051
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
EVERY RESULT OPENS A PERMANENT EVIDENCE RECORD.
Matching text only locates a record. It does not raise confidence, settle a dispute, establish cognacy, or turn a source report into direct inspection. Follow the result into its citations and editorial limits.