What does "recto" mean?

The front side of a flat object which is to be examined visually, as for reading, such as a sheet, leaf, coin or medal.

Recto

Common synonyms include: acknowledgment, acknowledgments, back, back matter, bastard title, bibliography.

//ˈɹɛk.toʊ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The front side of a flat object which is to be examined visually, as for reading, such as a sheet, leaf, coin or medal.
2
right-hand page wordnet
3
The front side of a flat object which is to be examined visually, as for reading, such as a sheet, leaf, coin or medal.; The right-hand page of a book of a script which reads from left to right, usually having an odd page number.
4
A writ of right.

Borrowed from Latin rēctō foliō (“on the right leaf, on the right page”), the ablative case of the Latin rēctus (“right”). Compare versus (“turned”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.