noun

• 1A book, document, or piece of music written by hand rather than typed or printed.

  ‘an illuminated manuscript’

  More example sentences

  • ‘early Gothic manuscripts’
  • ‘The books and manuscripts were written on vellum, a preparation of calf, goat and sheep skins.’
  • ‘Priceless books and manuscripts will receive special protection as the restoration of a library gets underway.’
  • ‘An entire manuscript of Urdu written in Roman is a precious treasure of the Lahore Museum.’
  • ‘These manuscripts are written by people in the past to tell us what has happened.’
  • ‘One of the features of early modern manuscript and even printed language was its variable and unstable nature.’
  • ‘From about this time we have the earliest surviving manuscript written by Galileo.’
  • ‘In antiquity Greek manuscripts were written in what we call capital letters, without any gaps between letters.’
  • ‘The museum has a large collection of Islamic art objects, manuscripts and printed books.’
  • ‘The Burns Museum is a treasure-trove of manuscripts, books, paintings and artefacts.’
  • ‘Its Romany collection of rare books and manuscripts celebrates the culture and history of travellers.’
  • ‘The author relies primarily on a variety of written sources, both manuscripts and printed.’
  • ‘In Malaysia, most of the manuscripts discovered were written after the advent of Islam.’
  • ‘At the same time, there are less than a dozen extant early medieval Welsh manuscripts, and only three are illuminated.’
  • ‘The looters retuned the next day, stealing the library's most valuable manuscripts and books.’
  • ‘His extensive collection of books and manuscripts later formed the basis of the British Museum library.’
  • ‘Bits of the manuscript turned up in strange libraries, written in unlikely languages.’
  • ‘Not all the manuscripts on show are spectacularly illuminated.’
  • ‘The treasury has been converted into a bright little museum of censers, illuminated manuscripts and paintings.’
  • ‘The illuminated manuscripts are so fragile the lighting is very low in the gallery.’
  • ‘The completed manuscripts will be displayed month by month in a special cabinet in the north aisle of the Priory.’

  Synonyms

  document, text, script, paper, typescript

  View synonyms

  1. 1.1An author's handwritten or typed text that has not yet been published.
     ‘several manuscripts in his own hand’
     More example sentences

     • ‘her autobiography remained in manuscript’
     • ‘We are attracting more manuscripts and publishing more articles than ever before.’
     • ‘All authors were responsible for revising the manuscript and for final approval of the paper.’
     • ‘Informed consent for this purpose requires that the patient should be shown the manuscript to be published.’
     • ‘It was never his intention to publish the manuscripts, but a friend who was a teacher read them and sent them to a publisher.’
     • ‘One of these unsolicited manuscripts might be published every couple of years or so.’
     • ‘How then do publishers respond to proposals or manuscripts from authors of How To Write books?’
     • ‘We thank the authors of the original manuscripts for allowing us to use them and the readers for taking part in our study.’
     • ‘You could offer to let them see the manuscript before it's published, if necessary.’
     • ‘Yes, but the anthropologist had sold his manuscript to some publisher who had no notice of any of this.’
     • ‘Those with ready works will be guided towards shopping their manuscripts to established publishers.’
     • ‘If he did approach publishers with the manuscript, a lot of people could have tipped off the paper.’
     • ‘Which is why there are a lot more manuscripts available for publication than there are publishers willing to pay for them.’
     • ‘Works on political subjects tended towards the abstract, circulating only in manuscript.’
     • ‘Of the three publishers she sent manuscripts to, only one asked for the rest of the novel.’
     • ‘Finally, at the end of August last year, I gave my manuscript to my publisher.’
     • ‘The spy writer falsely claimed he wrote the manuscript for the Enigma book.’
     • ‘Far from being unable to finish the book, he was on course to deliver the manuscript earlier than I expected.’
     • ‘He considered sending a legal letter asking for his manuscript back.’
     • ‘They did so without seeing the manuscript, and with the book not due to be delivered for another two years.’
     • ‘He had been writing a book on Epstein, but the manuscript was never found.’