codex
Americannoun
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codices
plural
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a quire of manuscript pages held together by stitching: the earliest form of book, replacing the scrolls and wax tablets of earlier times.
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a manuscript volume, usually of an ancient classic or the Scriptures.
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Archaic. a code; book of statutes.
noun
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a volume, in book form, of manuscripts of an ancient text
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obsolete a legal code
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of codex
1575–85; < Latin cōdex, caudex tree-trunk, book (formed originally from wooden tablets); cf. code
Explanation
A codex is an ancient book made of stacked, hand-written pages. A historian might study a medieval codex full of beautiful calligraphy and illustrations decorated with gold leaf. The ancient Romans invented the codex. When the codex first appeared as a way to bind a manuscript, it was a great improvement over previous methods. One of these was the scroll, a long roll of paper, and another was a wax tablet. Codex is a Latin word used to mean "book of laws," although it's literally "tree trunk." The plural of codex is codices.
Vocabulary lists containing codex
Aztec, Maya, and Inca Empires - Introductory
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Aztec, Maya, and Inca Empires - Middle School and High School
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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
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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.
See Examples For:
One can’t possibly grasp the closeness two people share until they’ve experienced firsthand the joy and indescribable pain that come with the kind of enmeshment written in fate’s codex.
From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2026
Ancient Aztec communities from the pre-Columbian period of Mesoamerica had a rich mythological codex that was also part of their ritual and sacrificial ceremonies.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 19, 2024
Studs are like codex for the alternative — unmistakable messaging that turns any chill fit into a statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 10, 2024
The codex is on display at Christie's New York and will remain there until 9 April.
From BBC ● Apr. 4, 2024
By contrast, all but the very longest titles could easily be printed in a single codex.
From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro
The temporary exchange of the two codices was agreed by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and her French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, during a visit by the latter to Mexico last year.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
They also used codices, book-like records drawn on bark paper that combined both images and pictograms.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
After the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century, colonizers destroyed countless codices as well as the Maya glyph system, and the long-term, quantitative sky tracking it enabled.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 1, 2022
The reassembled pages of his once-scattered codices have been reproduced for display in this exhibition; visitors can also explore digitized versions of the codices in-depth using touchscreens.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 28, 2021
No fewer than four of the codices treat the story of 8-Deer Jaguar Claw, a wily priest-general-politician with a tragic love for the wife of his greatest enemy.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
