Crossword clues for incunabulum
incunabulum
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Incunabulum \In`cu*nab"u*lum\, n.; pl. Incunabula. [L. incunabula cradle, birthplace, origin. See 1st In-, and Cunabula.] A work of art or of human industry, of an early epoch; especially, a book printed before a. d. 1500.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1861, singular of incunabula; taken up (originally in German) as a word for any book printed late 15c., in the "infancy" of the printer's art.
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 n. A book, single sheet, or image that was printed — not handwritten — before the year 1501 in Europe. Etymology 2
n. 1 (context especially in plural Latin) the apparatus of the cradle; 2 birthplace, origin
Usage examples of "incunabulum".
Bookcases filled with grimoires, daybooks, hornbooks, arcane thesauri, enchiridia, illuminated manuscripts, diaries, palimpsests, incunabula, claviculae, parerga, ana and epilegomena.
Books were heaped on tables and under tables -- big folios, tiny duodecimos, every sort of book ranging from incunabula to what seemed to be a complete collection of first editions of Edgar Wallace.
The incunabula (the first printed books) made knowledge accessible (sometimes in the vernacular) to scholars and laymen alike and liberated books from the scriptoria and "libraries" of monasteries.