Paraph
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A flourish made after or below one's signature, originally to prevent forgery.
- 2 a flourish added after or under your signature (originally to protect against forgery) wordnet
- 3 A mark used by medieval rubricators to indicate textual division.
"Commencing with a C-shaped paraph-sign in the same brown ink, the glosses are linked to their corresponding passages by alphabetic signs comprising single letters in a sequence beginning with a in each margin, moving on to b, c, and d down the page, and, ideally, linking with the same letter in the adjacent column. Such a pairing allows for matching the gloss with the specific location in the text where its comment should be considered."
- 1 To add a paraph to; to sign, especially with one's initials. transitive
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Commencing with a C-shaped paraph-sign in the same brown ink, the glosses are linked to their corresponding passages by alphabetic signs comprising single letters in a sequence beginning with a in each margin, moving on to b, c, and d down the page, and, ideally, linking with the same letter in the adjacent column. Such a pairing allows for matching the gloss with the specific location in the text where its comment should be considered."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English paraf, from Medieval Latin paraffus or its etymon Middle French paraphe, paraffe, shortening of paragraphe, from Ancient Greek παράγραφος (parágraphos).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.