Origin Story
In 1347 the Black Death swept across Europe, carrying off roughly a third of the population. In 1377 the trading city of Venice passed a law requiring every ship arriving at port to lie at anchor for thirty days (trentina). The isolation period was later extended to forty days (quarantina), because in the Bible forty was the symbolic number of purification and trial — Jesus's forty days of fasting in the wilderness, Noah's forty days of flood. Quarantina comes from Italian quaranta ("forty"), which passed through French quarantaine to become English quarantine. The COVID-19 pandemic turned this word into an everyday term around the world.
The first quarantine station was the island of Lazzaretto near Venice. Its name derives from the biblical Lazarus, and it is also the root of lazaretto, the word for an isolation hospital still used today.
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Oxford English Dictionaryquarantine: from Italian quarantina "period of forty days," from quaranta "forty," from Latin quadraginta
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Online Etymology Dictionaryquarantine (n.): 1660s, from Italian quarantina "forty days," from quaranta "forty," originally the period a ship suspected of carrying plague had to wait at anchor
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Encyclopaedia BritannicaVenice established the first institutionalized quarantine in 1377, initially for 30 days (trentina), later extended to 40 days (quarantina)
Word Evolution
Words from the Same Root
Memory Hook
quarantine = quaran ("forty") + tine. "Isolated for forty days!" The number forty is the key.
""The forty-day wisdom born of the Black Death was still alive against COVID seven centuries later.""
