incunable

American  

[in-kyoo-nuh-buhl] / ɪnˈkyu nə bəl /

noun

1. a book constituting part of a collection of incunabula.

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Etymology

Origin of incunable

1885–90; < French < Latin incūnābulum. See incunabula

Example Sentences

“Artists we’ve never heard. This is like the incunable of books. For the most part gone. Not to be found. It’s not out there.”

From Washington Post

Not only is the book an “incunable” – printed before 1501, when the ink was still wet on moveable type – but this deluxe copy was printed on vellum, or animal skin.

From The Guardian

What constitutes a true incunable cannot be defined in a sentence.

From Project Gutenberg

Any book which thus lets us into the secrets of the early printing offices possesses in a very high degree the charm which should attach to an incunable, if that hardly used word is to retain, as it should, any reference to the infancy of printing.

From Project Gutenberg

And so in regard to other points, any book which illustrates the relations of the early printers to the scribes, the difficulties which they experienced 99 in their work and the expedients by which they were surmounted deserves, whatever its date or present price, to be reckoned as a real incunable, and the collector who gets together a few dozen books of this kind will have far better sport for his outlay than he who is tied down too rigorously by chronology.

From Project Gutenberg