annotation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English annotacion,^[2][3] partly borrowed from Middle French annotation (“a remark on a book, an explanatory note”),^[4][5][6] recorded from the 14th century,^[4] and partly borrowed from Latin annotātiō (“the writing of notes; a note, a comment”),^[4][2][7][3] also written adnotātiō.^[4] The Latin noun is from annotō (“to note down, observe”),^[7][8][9] the source of annotate, which is formed from ad- (“to”) and notō (“to mark”),^[7][8][9] from nota (“a mark, a sign”),^[7][8][9] the source of note.^[7][8] The American Heritage Dictionary refers the Latin noun to Proto-Indo-European *gnō-.^[9] The OED compares Spanish anotación of the late 14th century and Italian annotazione of 1587.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The reckoning of time from a given starting point: before 1464, in J. Capgrave's Abbreuiacion of Cronicles, "In this same tyme began the annotacion of Olimpias".^[2][4] The same work has the plural annotaciones, which the Middle English Dictionary glosses as written comments and, in its supplement, as historical records.^[2] Etymonline gives "a written comment" as the mid-15th-century sense.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In post-classical Latin the noun could also mean a chronicle,^[4] and the chronological sense in English died out in the 17th century.^[4][5] The OED's first note added to a text is from 1528,^[4] though the Shorter Oxford puts that sense in late Middle English,^[5] and by 1755 Johnson knows only "explications or remarks written upon books".^[10] The action of adding such notes appears in 1570,^[4] and the noun long precedes the English verb annotate, which Etymonline dates to 1733 and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to 1710.^[7][3] Two technical uses followed French and Latin models and did not last: an inventory of goods seized by a court, and the sign of an oncoming fever, the second after post-classical Latin, itself after Ancient Greek ἐπισημασία (episēmasía) in Galen.^[4] A new technical sense arose in genetics in 1982.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1464 – the reckoning of events from a starting date (obsolete by 1669).^[4][2]
• 1528 – a note of explanation or comment added to a text.^[4]
• 1570 – the action of adding such notes, in J. Dee.^[4]
• 1616 – an inventory of goods seized by judicial authority, in Beaumont and Fletcher (rare, now obsolete).^[4]
• 1644 – in medicine, a sign of the onset of fever (obsolete by 1753).^[4]
• 1982 – in genetics, the identifying and labelling of regions in a sequence of nucleotides.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A note added to a text, document or diagram to explain or comment on it: Her annotations fill the margins of the old atlas.^[4][6][3][9]
2. The act of adding such notes.^[9][3][4][6]
3. A short informative note describing a book.^[3]
4. (genetics) The identifying of coding and non-coding regions in a digital sequence of nucleotides, with biological information attached to them.^[4]
5. A rescript answering a private citizen.^[3]
6. (obsolete, before 1464–1669) The reckoning of events in order of time from a given date.^[4][5][2]

Word family

• reannotation

Related words

• annotate
• note
• notation
• connote

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.