noun
1A book, document, or piece of music written by hand rather than typed or printed.
‘an illuminated manuscript’
- ‘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.’
- 1.1An author's handwritten or typed text that has not yet been published.
‘several manuscripts in his own hand’
- ‘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.’
Origin
Late 16th century from medieval Latin manuscriptus, from manu ‘by hand’ + scriptus ‘written’ (past participle of scribere).