Editing Quadi (section)

==Name==
According to the ''Germanische Altertumskunde Online'', the etymologies proposed for the ethnonym are all fraught with difficulties:{{sfn|Neumann|2003}}
*Since [[Jacob Grimm]] (d. 1863), it has often been assumed that this ethnonym is related to the [[Dutch language|Dutch]] adjective ''[[wiktionary:kwaad|kwaad]]'', which means "angry, bad, evil, wrong, poor quality" - versions of which are also found in medieval [[German language|German]] and English. However, this would be a surprising choice of name, because it has such a negative meaning. It could therefore perhaps have started as a name given by their enemies, and it might have continued as a name intended to evoke fear.
*The name has also often been associated with Germanic verbs such as English "quoth", originally the past tense of medieval "[[wiktionary:quethe#English|quethe]]", which meant "say" or "declare" (preserved in the modern word "bequeath"). However, the precise meaning of this word as an ethnonym is unclear in this case.
*[[Wolfgang Krause]] proposed that the ethnonym might originally belong to Germanic ''hwatjan'', meaning "to incite". However, the form of the ethnonym as it appears in ancient sources would then not show the expected Germanic [[Grimm's law|First Sound Shift]].