quidam

From Latin quīdam.

quidam (plural quidams)

1. A nobody; a person of no importance. [from 16th c.]
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, III.12:

     A quidam gallant determined upon a time to surprise both my house and my selfe.

   • 1792, Thomas Holcroft, Anna St. Ives, vol. IV, letter 77:

     She singing a miserable ditty, a bead-roll of lamentable rhymes, strung together by this Quidam!—This Henley!

• IPA^(key): /ki.dam/

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quidam m (plural quidams)

1. Used to designate persons whose name are unknown or not mentioned
2. Person whose identity is not indicated, in a conversation, a writing
3. individual

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

From quī +‎ -dam (demonstrative ending).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈkʷiː.dam/, [ˈkʷiːd̪ä̃ˑ]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkwi.dam/, [ˈkwiːd̪äm]

quīdam (feminine quaedam, neuter quiddam); relative/interrogative pronoun (with m optionally → n in compounds) with an indeclinable portion

1. someone, a certain one/thing; something

   Quidam vitiis gloriantur.

   Some people boast with their vices. (Seneca, Epistulae ad Luculium, III,28)

Not to be confused with quidem.

Relative/interrogative pronoun (with m optionally → n in compounds) with an indeclinable portion.

¹In Republican Latin or earlier, quī was often spelled as quei, cuius as quoius, cui as quoi (or quoiei), and quīs as queis.

quīdam (feminine quaedam, neuter quoddam); relative/interrogative pronoun (with m optionally → n in compounds) with an indeclinable portion

1. Certain (person or thing), some (person or thing), one [in the sense of "a specific"] (person or thing not previously introduced in the present discourse).

Relative/interrogative pronoun (with m optionally → n in compounds) with an indeclinable portion.

¹In Republican Latin or earlier, quī was often spelled as quei, cuius as quoius, cui as quoi (or quoiei), and quīs as queis.

• “quidam”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “quidam”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• quidam in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• quidam in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • I have a few words to say on this: mihi quaedam dicenda sunt de hac re