quid pro quo

Noun

quid pro quo (plural quae pro quibus or quid pro quibus or quid pro quos)

1. Something which is understood as something else; an equivocation.
   • The misunderstanding of the word or the quid pro quo is the unintentional pun, and is related to it exactly as folly is to wit.1844, Arthur Schopenhauer, translated by Richard Burdon Haldane, The World as Will and Representation, 2nd edition, first book, translation of original in German, section 13
   • “Is it simply a wild fantasy, or a mistake on the part of the old man — some impossible quid pro quo?”1912, Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnett, The Brothers Karamazov, translation of original in Russian, part II, book V, chapter 5
2. (historical) Substitution of one drug for another.
   • a knave Apothecary that administers the Physick, and makes the medicine, may doe infinite harme, by his old obsolete doses, adulterine druggs, bad mixtures, quid pro quo, etc.1621-51, Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy
   • Nicholas [Praepositus] was also the author of a "Quid pro Quo", that is an alphabetically arranged catalogue of equivalent drugs, capable of replacing each other, when for any reason one or the other drug was wanting1889, Johann Hermann Baas, Henry Ebenezer Handerson, Outlines of the History of Medicine and the Medical Profession, page 263
3. Something which is offered or asked for in exchange for something else.
   • To deny that the arrangement was a quid pro quo would be laughably disingenuous.
   • It was quite obviously a quid pro quo arrangement.
4. A usually non-monetary exchange transaction, or series or process of exchange transactions.
   • More importantly, the Chrysler bailout produced a quid pro quo wherein Congress agreed to pass bank deregulation legislation if banks agreed to convert substantial amounts of Chrysler's debt to equity.1997, Davita Silfen Glasberg, Daniel L. Skidmore, Corporate Welfare Policy and the Welfare State, page 138
   • The apparent exception at the Temple of Neith at Sais is likely due to an agreement, a quid pro quo, made with Udjahorresnet, not to a failure to enact the command immediately.2004, Lisbeth S. Fried, The Priest and the Great King: Temple-palace Relations in the Persian Empire, page 74
   1. An equal or fair transaction or series of process of exchange transactions; tit for tat.
      • Mr. P. did not consider that branch, strictly and technically speaking, public revenue; at least it did not arise from taxation, because those persons who had paid this money had received a full equivalent for the same; there was a quid pro quo on both sides; and this was not taxation, it was a...1837, United States. Congress, The Congressional Globe, page 1977
      • What we should do, however, is insist that there be a quid pro quo — an equal exchange.1988, Industrial R&D and U.S. Technological Leadership
5. Sexual harassment in which a person in a workplace implicitly or explicitly requires sexual favours in exchange for something.
   • A quid pro quo complaint typically is lodged by an employee who has been denied opportunities because he or she refused a perpetrator's sexual advances or by an employee who has been denied opportunities because another employee obtained those opportunities by submitting to a perpetrator's sexual...2008, Ronald W. Scott, Promoting Legal and Ethical Awareness, page 140
   • As for a legal remedy to the problem of harassment, the Court found that a proper, well-advertised grievance procedure could be used in a defense where sexual comments and horseplay created a “hostile environment,” but not in the quid pro quo cases that feminist Catharine MacKinnon had dubbed "put...2009, Frank Dobbin, Inventing Equal Opportunity

   Synonyms:

   QPQ