Manuscript

How to spell manuscript

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce manuscript

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does manuscript mean?

1. nounAn author's text of a book or article, especially before it is published or printed.

Manuscript in a sentence

• The publisher rejected her manuscript after a long review.

• He posted the finished manuscript to his literary agent.

Where does manuscript come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the medieval Latin manuscriptum, a compound of manus, meaning 'hand', and scriptus, the past participle of scribere, meaning 'to write'. Taken together it described something 'written by hand', as opposed to anything produced by a printing press. The term gained real currency in the 1500s and 1600s, precisely when printing had become common enough that hand-written documents needed a distinct name. English absorbed it directly from this Latin source, keeping both halves intact, which is why the spelling preserves the clean join of 'manu' and 'script'. The same manus root survives in everyday words such as 'manual', 'manufacture', and 'manage', while scribere underlies 'scribe', 'describe', and 'subscription'. Recognising those two familiar building blocks is the easiest way to spell the word correctly every time.

How the word is built

• manu- (from manus: hand)
• script (from scriptus: written)
• (literally 'written by hand')