"embracing and caressing a member of the opposite sex," 1825; see neck (v.). In architecture, "moldings near the capital of a column."

"Spanish country house or villa," 1754, from Spanish and Portuguese quinta, originally a farm and house let out for a rent of one-fifth of its produce, from Latin quintus "one fifth," which is related to quinque "five" (see quinque-). Given various more specific senses in North and South America.

1915, "one who writes serially for publication in a newspaper or magazine," from column in the newspaper sense + -ist.

The successful Columnist puts his own personality into his column. It is not a case of impersonal jesting and the heaping up of cold, blue-lit diamonds of wit. The reader likes the column because it reveals a daily insight into another man's soul—and he finds this other soul likeable. [C.L. Edson, "The Gentle Art of Columning," 1920]

1610s, originally in astrology and said to have been introduced by Kepler, "aspect of planets when they are 72 degrees from each other" (a fifth of the zodiac), from Latin quintus "the fifth" (from PIE root *penkwe- "five") + ending from quartile. Its use in statistics in reference to a division data points into five parts of more or less equal size dates to 1951.

mid-15c., quinte (late 13c. in Anglo-French), "a tax of one-fifth," from Old French quint, from Latin quintus "the fifth," ordinal to quinque "five" (from PIE root *penkwe- "five"). Used in English for "group or set of five" since 17c. First attested 1935 as a shortening of quintuplet (American English; British English prefers quin); used originally of the Dionne quintuplets, born May 28, 1934, near Callander, Ontario, Canada (compare quin).

Roman fem. given name, fem. of Quintillus, diminutive of quintus "fifth" (related to quinque "five;" from PIE root *penkwe- "five"). The Quintillians were a Montanist sect, said to have been named for their prophetess Quintilla.

"a square column or pillar," 1570s, from French pilastre (1540s), from Italian pilastro, from Medieval Latin pilastrum (mid-14c.), from pila, "buttress, pile" (from Latin pila, see pillar) + Latin -aster, suffix "expressing incomplete resemblance" [Barnhart].

1560s, in geometry, "a solid whose bases or ends are any similar, equal, and parallel plane polygons, and whose sides are parallelograms" (not always triangular), from Late Latin prisma, from Greek prisma "a geometrical prism, trilateral column," (Euclid), literally "something sawed (as a block of wood), sawdust," from prizein, priein "to saw" (related to prion "a saw"), which is of uncertain origin. Euclid chose the word, apparently, on the image of a column with the sides sawn off.

Specific sense in optics, "an instrument (usually triangular) with well-polished sides of glass, quartz, etc., which refracts light and spreads it in a spectrum," is attested from 1610s.