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colophon

  (kŏl'ə-fŏn', -fən) pronunciation
n.
  1. An inscription placed usually at the end of a book, giving facts about its publication.
  2. A publisher's emblem or trademark placed usually on the title page of a book.

[Late Latin colophōn, from Greek kolophōn, summit, finishing touch.]


 
 
Thesaurus: colophon

noun

    A name or other device placed on merchandise to signify its ownership or manufacture: brand, label, mark, trademark. See marks.

 

colophon, the publisher's imprint or emblem usually displayed on the title page of a book; or (in older books) an inscription placed at the end of a book, naming the printer and the date and place of publication.

 

Ancient Ionian Greek city, western Anatolia. Located 15 mi (25 km) northwest of the ancient city of Ephesus, it was a flourishing commercial city in the 8th – 5th centuries BC, famous for its cavalry, its luxury, and its production of rosin. A member of the Delian League, during the Peloponnesian War it was controlled first by the Persian Achaemenian dynasty and then by Athens, and it was conquered in 302 BC by Macedonia under Alexander the Great. Only a few foundations of the old walled city are now visible.

For more information on Colophon, visit Britannica.com.

 
(kŏl'əfŏn') [Gr.,=finishing stroke]. Before the use of printing in Western Europe a manuscript often ended with a statement about the author, the scribe, or the illuminator. The first printed book to have a comparable concluding statement was the Mainz Psalter, crediting the printer and giving the date printed (1457) in its last paragraph. After this, a printed book commonly ended with this statement, now called a colophon. The information came to be given on the title page after c.1520. The name colophon is applied also to a printer's mark or a publisher's device on a title page or elsewhere.


 
Obscure Words: colophon


an identifying device used by a printer or publisher
 
Wikipedia: colophon (publishing)

A colophon, in publishing, is a brief description usually located at the end of a book, describing production notes relevant to the edition. In most cases it is a description of the text typography, often entitled A note about the type. This will identify the names of the primary typefaces used, provide a brief description of the type's history, and a brief statement about its most identifiable physical characteristics. A colophon may also identify the book's designer, software used, printing method if letterpress, the printing company, and the kind of ink, paper and its cotton content. Detailed colophons are a characteristic feature of limited edition and private press printing. Books publishers Alfred A. Knopf and O'Reilly Media are notable for their substantial colophons.

If a book has a colophon, it may appear either on the same page as the copyright information, or at the back of the volume. In early printed books the colophon follows the explicit, the final words of the text. A less frequent use of the term is for a printer's mark or logotype. This originated in Renaissance printing shops, where a title page would feature the printer's mark (colophon) near the bottom of the page, usually above the printer's name and city.

Some Web pages also have colophons, which frequently contain (X)HTML, CSS, or usability standards compliance information and links to Web site validation tests.

The term "colophon" derives from the Late Latin colophon, from the Greek κολοφων (meaning "summit", "top", or "finishing"). It should not be confused with Colophon, an ancient city in Asia Minor, after which "colophony", or rosin (ronnel) is named.

The term derives from a tablet inscription appended by a scribe to the end of an ancient Near East (e.g., Early/Middle/Late Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanite) text such as a chapter, book, manuscript, or record. In the ancient Near East, scribes typically recorded information on clay tablets. The colophon usually contained facts relative to the text such as associated person(s) (e.g., the scribe, owner, or commissioner of the tablet), literary contents (e.g., a title, "catch" phrase, number of lines), and occasion or purpose of writing. Colophons and "catch phrases" (repeated phrases) helped the reader organize and identify various tablets, and keep related tablets together.

Positionally, colophons on ancient tablets are comparable to a signature line in our own times. Bibliographically, however, they more closely resemble the imprint page in a modern book.

References

  • Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
  • Hamilton, Victor P. (1990). The Book of Genesis 1-17, pp. 5-6. New International Commentary on the Old Testament Series, Eerdmans.

 
Translations: Colophon

Dansk (Danish)
n. - kolofon, slutskrift

Nederlands (Dutch)
colofon

Français (French)
n. - (Typ) chiffre (de l'éditeur, de l'imprimeur), marque typographique

Deutsch (German)
n. - Kolophon, (Buchanhang mit dem Namen des Autors), Signet (Aufdruck des Verlegers auf der Titelseite)

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (τυπογρ.) κορωνίδα

Italiano (Italian)
colophon, logotipo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - colofão (m)

Русский (Russian)
колофон

Español (Spanish)
n. - colofón, pie de imprenta

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - kolofon

中文(简体) (Chinese (Simplified))
版权页

中文(繁體) (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 版權頁

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 간기, 판권 페이지

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 巻尾飾り模様, 出版社のマーク

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) بيانات في نهايه الكتب حول الناشر و الكاتب ألخ‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮סמל המוציא לאור‬


 
 

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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Obscure Words. © 2008 by Michael A. Fischer http://home.comcast.net/~wwftd Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Colophon (publishing)" Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

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