Manuscript
Pronunciation
Origin
1597, from Medieval Latin manuscriptum ("writing by hand"), from Latin manu (ablative of manus ("hand")) + scriptus (past participle of scribere ("to write")), calqued from a word of origin, compare Middle High German hantschrift, hantgeschrift (c. 1450, "manuscript"), Old English handġewrit (before 1150, "what is written by hand, deed, contract, manuscript"), Old Norse handrit (before 1300, "manuscript").
Full definition of manuscript
Adjective
manuscript
- Which is handwritten, or by extension typewritten, as opposed to mechanical reproduction.
Noun
manuscript
(plural manuscripts)- A book, composition or any other document, written by hand (or manually typewritten), not mechanically reproduced.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 1, In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, …, and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.
- 2013, Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Eyeglasses, The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,.... Scribes, illuminators, and scholars held such stones directly over manuscript pages as an aid in seeing what was being written, drawn, or read.
- A single, original copy of a book, article, composition etc, written by hand or even printed, submitted as original for (copy-editing and) reproductive publication.