incunabulum

• incunable

From Latin incūnābulum (“cradle, origin”).

• IPA^(key): /ˌɪn.kjʊˈnæb.jʊ.ləm/

• Audio (US):

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incunabulum (plural incunabula)

1. (printing) A book, single sheet, or image that was printed before the year 1501 in Europe.
   • August 1935, Clark Ashton Smith, “The Treader of the Dust”, in Weird Tales:

     Sebastian, a profound student of such lore, had long believed that the book was a mere medieval legend; and he had been startled as well as gratified when he found this copy on the shelves of a dealer in old manuscripts and incunabula.

   • 2004, Luisa Graves, The Shadow of the Wind, translation of original by Carlos Ruiz Zafón:

     Something about him reminded me of one of those figures from old-fashioned playing cards or the sort used by fortune-tellers, a print straight from the pages of an incunabulum: his presence was both funereal and incandescent, like a curse dressed in its Sunday best.

2. (chiefly in the plural) The cradle, birthplace, or origin of something.

• incunabular
• incunabulist

• incunable on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Michael Quinion (1996–2024) “Incunabulum”, in World Wide Words.
• Incunabula Collections, The British Library

• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /in.kuˈna.bu.lum/, [iŋkuˈnäːbulum]

incūnābulum n (genitive incūnābulī); second declension

1. (Medieval Latin) Alternative form of incūnābula

Second-declension noun (neuter).