Codex
//ˈkəʊdɛks// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 An early manuscript book.
- 2 an unbound manuscript of some ancient classic (as distinguished from a scroll) wordnet
- 3 A book bound in the modern manner, by joining pages, as opposed to a rolled scroll.
"From its inception, the index has provided a window onto the history of the book, for it took the advent of a particular type of book — the codex, a sheaf of pages fastened along one edge — to make an index a practical possibility."
- 4 an official list of chemicals or medicines etc. wordnet
- 5 An official list of medicines and medicinal ingredients.
Example
More examples"From its inception, the index has provided a window onto the history of the book, for it took the advent of a particular type of book — the codex, a sheaf of pages fastened along one edge — to make an index a practical possibility."
Etymology
From Latin cōdex, variant form of caudex (“tree trunk, book, notebook”); compare caudex (in botany). Doublet of code.
Related phrases
More for "codex"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.