APPENDIX C

Publishing Terms

abridged dictionary: An unabridged dictionary that has been reduced in size and scope by a variety of omissions or reductions of elements such as the number of entry words (for example, obsolete and technical terms), definitions of a word, textual illustrations, synonyms and synonym discussions, etymology, symbols of pronunciation, and abbreviations. It also contains revisions of the unabridged “parent” dictionary with the addition of new senses of words and the addition of new entry words.

book sizes

folio: A book format produced by folding a large printer’s sheet once, making two leaves or four pages that form the individual sections (gatherings) of the book.

quarto: A book format (abbreviated 4to or 4º) produced by folding a large printer’s sheet twice, making four leaves or eight pages, each leaf one-quarter the size of the original sheet. This is the most common format of unabridged dictionaries discussed in this book.

octavo: A book format (abbreviated 8to or 8vo) produced by folding a large printer’s sheet three times, making eight leaves or sixteen pages, each one-eighth the size of the original sheet. This is the format commonly used for abridgments of dictionaries discussed in this book. It is the average size of a hardcover book today.

royal octavo: A book only slightly larger than a regular octavo, printed from a royal sheet rather than from the slightly smaller sheet from which a regular octavo is produced.

duodecimo: A book format (abbreviated 12to or 12mo) produced by folding a large printer’s sheet four times, making twelve leaves or twenty-four pages, used for some smaller abridged dictionaries. It is the size of a popular paperback book today.

diacritic: A sign or mark used to indicate special sounds or phonetic values of a letter.

entry word or headword: The word under which definitions and other explanations of that word appear.

fascicle: A section of a book or set of books being published in installments as separate pamphlets or volumes.

hard word: Earliest term for a foreign word (chiefly Latin) entering the language.

neologism: A new word, usage, phrase, or expression entering the language.

notation: Symbols, characters, and numbers used to indicate pronunciation.

orthoepy: The study of the correct pronunciation of words and its relationship to spelling.

orthography: The study of correct spelling.

stereotype printing: Increasingly from the late eighteenth century onward, stereotyping replaced the hand-cast type form that was used in the traditional method of printing. It involved making a papier-mâché or plaster mold from the surface of the typeset form, onto which (when the mold cooled) hot metal would be poured to create the stereotype plate. Printing would then be done from that plate instead of from the original typeset form. There were several advantages to this method, among which were the superior mobility of the stereotype plates, ease of storage for future and frequent use, and longevity, since the original forms wore out far more quickly. The plates could also be purchased by and sold to other printers and publishers. Printers/publishers, or anyone owning the plates, possessed great leverage over the publishing fortunes of, for example, a dictionary, especially if they could acquire the copyright as well.

synonymy: A list or collection of synonyms for an entry word in a dictionary, especially one in which their meanings are carefully distinguished from each other.

unabridged dictionary: The most comprehensive version of a dictionary, not reduced in size; a dictionary that gives “full coverage to the lexicon in general use at a particular time in the history of the language and substantial coverage to specialized lexicons . . . with quotations given to support its definitions, illustrate context, and suggest typical varieties of usage” (Landau, Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography, 17–18).

word count: The number of entry words in a dictionary. These figures are variously reckoned in different dictionaries, which sometimes complicates direct comparisons.