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Quid pro quo (From the Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 meaning "something for something" ) indicates a more-or-less equal exchange or substitution of goods or services. English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 speakers often use the term to mean "a favour for a favour" and the phrases with almost identical meaning include: "what for what," "give and take," "tit for tat"
Tit for tat

Tit for tat is a highly effective strategy in game theory for the iterated prisoner's dilemma. It was first introduced by Anatol Rapoport in Robert Axelrod's two tournaments, held around 1980....
, "this for that", "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours", and "swings and roundabouts."

egal usage, quid pro quo indicates that an item or a service has been traded in return for something of value, usually when the propriety or equity of the transaction is in question.






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Quid pro quo (From the Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 meaning "something for something" ) indicates a more-or-less equal exchange or substitution of goods or services. English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 speakers often use the term to mean "a favour for a favour" and the phrases with almost identical meaning include: "what for what," "give and take," "tit for tat"
Tit for tat

Tit for tat is a highly effective strategy in game theory for the iterated prisoner's dilemma. It was first introduced by Anatol Rapoport in Robert Axelrod's two tournaments, held around 1980....
, "this for that", "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours", and "swings and roundabouts."

Legal usage

In legal usage, quid pro quo indicates that an item or a service has been traded in return for something of value, usually when the propriety or equity of the transaction is in question. For example, under the common law
Common law

Common law refers to law and the corresponding Legal systems of the world developed through legal opinion of courts and similar tribunals , rather than through statute law or Executive ....
 (except in Scotland
Scots law

Scots law is a unique Legal systems of the world with an ancient basis in Roman law. Grounded in Codification Civil law dating back to the Corpus Juris Civilis, it also features elements of common law with Legal institutions of Scotland in the High Middle Ages sources....
), a binding contract
Contract

A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do, or refrain from doing, an act which is enforceable in a court of law. It is a binding legal agreement....
 must involve consideration
Consideration

Consideration is the central concept in the common law of contracts and is required, in most cases, for a contract to be enforceable. Consideration is the price one pays for another's promise....
: that is, the exchange of something of value for something else of economic value. If the exchange appears excessively one sided, courts in some jurisdictions may question whether a quid pro quo did actually exist and the contract may be voidable.

Another set of examples arises when an exchange is prohibited by public policy. Where prostitution
Prostitution

The word prostitution is used to indicate:1. The exposing or otherwise offering oneself or someone else with the purpose of tempting potential customers to exchange money or goods for the promise of cooperativeness in sexual intercourse from the exposed person;...
 is illegal, it remains common and lawful to use gifts, expensive meals and so on, as a means of attracting a sexual partner. The distinction is whether sexual favors are directly conditional on receiving gifts and vice-versa. In the absence of such a quid pro quo, there is no prostitution. Similarly, political donors are legally entitled to support candidates that hold positions with which the donors agree, or which will benefit the donors. Such conduct becomes bribery
Bribery

Bribery, a form of pecuniary corruption, is an act implying money or gift given that alters the behaviour of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the Offer and acceptance, Gift, Offer and acceptance, or Solicitation of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or other pers...
 only when there is an identifiable exchange between the contribution and official acts, previous or subsequent, and the term quid pro quo denotes such an exchange. The term may also be used to describe blackmail
Blackmail

Blackmail is the crime of threatening to reveal Substantial truth information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand made upon the victim is met....
, where a person offers to refrain from some harmful conduct in return for valuable consideration.

The term is also widely used to denote a type of sexual harassment
Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment is unwelcome attention of a sexual nature and is a form of illegal and social harassment. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and annoyances to actual sexual abuse or sexual assault....
 in two variations, one of which answers to bribery and the other to blackmail. In the former case, unwarranted advancement is offered in return for sexual favors. In the second, deserved advancement, or simple continuation in service, is conditional on sexual receptivity. Quid pro quo makes the situation of a boss asking a subordinate for sex, or vice-versa, repugnant to the law.

Other meanings

Quid pro quo may less commonly refer to something (originally a medicine) given or used in place of another.

Quid pro quo may sometimes be used to define a misunderstanding or blunder made by the substituting of one thing for another, particularly in the context of the transcribing of a text.

Quid pro quo may sometimes be described as the idiom,"You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours". In legislative contexts, it may take the form of vote trading
Vote trading

Vote trading is the practice of supporting someone else's initiative in exchange for their support of one's own initiative. It frequently takes place in legislative bodies....
. It may also describe the reverse situation, for example when a donor expects something in return later.

Quid pro quo is often used as a term in England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 to mean 'What's in it for me?'

The word Quid is a British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 slang
Slang

Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's dialect or language....
 term for a unit/units of the currency
Currency

A currency is a Medium of exchange, facilitating the trade of goods and/or Service s. It is coins and paper bills used as money. It is one form of money, where money is anything that serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a standard of value....
 Pound Sterling
Pound sterling

----The pound sterling , subdivided into 100 pence , is the currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown dependency and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctic Territory....
 (e.g., Twenty Pounds/ Twenty Quid) and is believed to come from the phrase Quid pro quo, referring to currency as a means of exchange.

Related phrases

The phrase qui pro quo, or quiproquo (from medieval Latin
Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration....
: literally qui instead of quo) is common in languages such as Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, Portuguese
Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
, Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
 and French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
, where it means a misunderstanding.

In those languages, the phrase corresponding to the usage of quid pro quo in English is do ut des (Latin for "I give, so that you may give").

See also

  • List of Latin phrases
    List of Latin phrases

    This page lists direct English language translations of common Latin phrases, such as veni, vidi, vici and et cetera. Some of the phrases are themselves translations of List of Greek phrases, as Greek language rhetoric and literature were highly regarded in ancient Rome when Latin rhetoric and literature were still maturing....
  • An eye for an eye
    An eye for an eye

    The phrase "an eye for an eye", ; , is a quotation from in which a person who has taken the eye of another in a fight is instructed to give his own eye in compensation....
  • Offset agreement
    Offset agreement

    An offset agreement is an agreement between two parties whereby a supplier agrees to buy products from the party to whom it is selling, in order to win the buyer's custom and offset the buyer's outlay....
  • Pay to Play
    Pay to Play

    Pay to Play, sometimes pay for play, is a phrase which has been used for a variety of situations in which money is exchanged for services or the privilege to engage in certain activities....