Meaning

noun a short note recognizing a source of information or of a quoted passage

noun a passage or expression that is quoted or cited

noun a statement of the current market price of a security or commodity

originThe obsolete sense of “quota”, from Medieval Latin quotātiō, from Latin quotāre, is attested from the 15th century. The sense “fragment of verbal expression”, attested from the 17th century, may come from this source, or else from the verb quote + -ation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0