quid pro quo

noun

Etymology: Borrowed from Latin quid prō quō (literally “something for something”).

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.”

   ““Is it simply a wild fantasy, or a mistake on the part of the old man — some impossible quid pro quo?””

2. 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.”

   “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 wanting”

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.”

   “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.”

5. A usually non-monetary exchange transaction, or series or process of exchange transactions.

   “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 sale; the parties therefore from whom this money was derived had not been taxed.”

   “What we should do, however, is insist that there be a quid pro quo — an equal exchange.”

6. 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 advances.”

   “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 out or get out."”