marginalia
Americanplural noun
plural noun
Etymology
Origin of marginalia
1825–35; < New Latin, noun use of neuter plural of Medieval Latin marginālis marginal
Explanation
Marginalia are the notes you scribble along the sides of the text in a book. When you buy a novel at a used book store, you may discover the previous owner's marginalia among its pages. The notes a student takes while reading often end up in the margins of the book. This marginalia might help the reader think critically and carefully about the text, or even act as a study aid later when there's a test on the material. Marginalia gets its name from the fact that it's written in the margin, which in turn comes from the Latin marginem, "edge or border."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Marginalia can record boredom, distraction, and mental drift, or even the refusal to read: in my used copy of John Milton’s “Comus,” the text is covered in elaborate calligraphic “Z”s, to denote snoring.
From The New Yorker • Aug. 26, 2019
Marginalia is where we let our hair down and say what we really think, but they can also develop into a kind of shorthand.
From The Guardian • Jan. 6, 2017
In his poem "Marginalia," Billy Collins, the former American poet laureate, wrote about how a previous reader had stirred the passions of a boy just beginning high school and reading "The Catcher in the Rye."
From Seattle Times • Feb. 22, 2011
Marginalia in the great sweep of international affairs, of course, but such items were priorities for the White House staff as it planned last week's double date for Anwar, Jihan, Ronnie and Nancy.
From Time Magazine Archive
Poe's influence affected Baudelaire's prose, notably in the disjointed confessions, Mon cœur mis à nu, which vaguely recall the American writer's Marginalia.
From The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire with an Introductory Preface by James Huneker by Baudelaire, Charles
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
