incunabulum
noun/ˌɪn.kjʊˈnæb.jʊ.ləm/
Etymology Borrowed from Latin incūnābulum (“cradle, origin”).
1
Media, Printing, Publishing A book, single sheet, or image that was printed before the year 1501 in Europe.
- 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.August 1935, Clark Ashton Smith, “The Treader of the Dust”, in Weird Tales:
- 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.2004, Luisa Graves, The Shadow of the Wind, translation of original by Carlos Ruiz Zafón:
2
In plural The cradle, birthplace, or origin of something.
- Related terms
- incunabular, incunabulist