New member's first question, re "quotvis"

Latin Learning Latin
1

For various projects, I end up translating entries from 16th- to 18th-century European dictionaries and encyclopedias into English. These entries often contain Latin words and passages that also need translating. When I cannot puzzle something out, the folks at WordReference have over the years been very patient and helpful. Having just learned of TextKit, I would like to pose a question here.

In his article on paradigme in Diderot’s Encyclopédie (https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L’Encyclopédie/1re_édition/PARADIGME) Nicolas Beauzée lists several indeclinable Latin adjectives: “les adjectifs pluriels, tot, totidem, quot, aliquot, quotcunque, quotquot, quotlibet, quotvis;”. Of these, only quotvis remains mysterious: I have not found a reliable definitional source that reports this word, although its existence as a working word can be attested by a simple google search. Google translate does return “however many”, but I do not trust google translate without verification. So, I’m lost. Can someone please point me in the right direction? Thank you.

2

It’s clearly quot + vīs = how many + you want. but I can’t find it in Latin dictionaries either.

3

Then pretty much equivalent to quotlibet. Thank you for your help.

4

quovis?

5

I asked myself this, too, particularly because dictionaries routinely report on quovis while ignoring quotvis. But Beauzée was clearly riffing on compounds built upon quot and quantities, and quovis would veer in a different semantic direction. So I concluded that Beauzée did indeed intend quotvis.

6

It seems that at some point the preferred reading for Lucretius 3.1090 was

Proinde licet quotvis vivendo condere saecla

instead of

Proinde licet quod vis vivendo condere saecla

Quot for quod (set for sed, etc.) is quite common in medieval manuscripts, which is maybe where the two readings come from.

Apart from that I can’t find quotvis in texts older than the 16th c. Just a wild guess but could it be that the rediscovery of the De Rerum Natura lent credence to quotvis?