Manuscript
adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A book, composition or any other document, written by hand (or manually typewritten), not mechanically reproduced.
"In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned."
- 2 the form of a literary work submitted for publication wordnet
- 3 A single, original copy of a book, article, composition etc, written by hand or even printed, submitted as original for (copy-editing and) reproductive publication.
- 4 handwritten book or document wordnet
- 1 Handwritten, or by extension manually typewritten, as opposed to being mechanically reproduced. not-comparable
Example
More examples"You should come early in order for him to read your manuscript before your speech."
Etymology
1597, from Medieval Latin manūscrīptus, a calque of Germanic origin, equivalent to Latin manū (ablative of manus (“hand”)) + Latin scrīptus (past participle of scribere (“to write”)). Not found in Classical Latin.
From Medieval Latin manūscrīptum (“writing by hand”), a calque of Germanic origin: compare Middle Low German hantschrift (“manuscript, document”), Middle Dutch hantscrift (“manuscript”) (c. 1451), Old High German hantgiskrīb (“handwriting, document, manuscript”), Middle High German hantschrift, hantgeschrift (“manuscript”) (c. 1450), Old English handġewrit (“what is written by hand, deed, contract, manuscript”) (before 1150), Old Norse handrit (“manuscript”) (before 1300). Not found in Classical Latin.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.