incunabula

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin incunabula (“swaddling clothes, cradle; birthplace, beginnings”),^[1][2][3] from in- “in” and cūnābula “cradle”, from cūnae “cradle”.^[1][2][3] The singular is incunabulum.^[4][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest stages or first traces in the development of anything (1824).^[1][2][4]

Semantic evolution

The sense of books printed in the infancy of printing, especially before 1501, is recorded in English from 1861.^[1][4] It probably refers to Incunabula Typographiae, the first catalogue of such books, published in 1688.^[1][2] Random House notes that the English sense translates German Wiegendrucke “cradle prints”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1688 – Incunabula Typographiae, a catalogue of early books.^[1][2]
• 1824 – the earliest stages of anything.^[1][2][4]
• 1861 – books printed before 1501.^[1][4]
• 1889 – incunabular.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Books printed from movable type in the earliest stage of printing, before 1501.
2. The earliest stages or first traces of anything.
3. The early works of a writer; juvenilia.

Word family

• incunabular

Related words

• incunabulum
• cradle

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org