recto
Americannoun
noun
-
the front of a sheet of printed paper
-
the right-hand pages of a book, bearing the odd numbers Compare verso
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of recto
1815–25; < Late Latin rēctō ( foliō ) on the right-hand (leaf or page), ablative of Latin rēctus right
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:
“Sobekmose,” a masterwork containing about 100 spells, is unusual, in part, because it’s inscribed recto and verso.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
Exterior becomes interior — or verso becomes recto — in Leedham’s wittily jumbled tableaux.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 23, 2022
Then on the recto the book opens up a trapdoor: “But what else is time?”
From New York Times ● Dec. 17, 2021
The first two parts of The Same Life Twice are arranged in a verso and recto standoff, and often engage each other in an unseemly slanging match across the page.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 24, 2012
On the recto, one to the same lady from Olive.
From "Ella Enchanted" by Gail Carson Levine
Behind the talk of versos and rectos is the awareness that big money is moving into the market.
From Time Magazine Archive
The illuminations, upon the rectos of the first and second leaves, are as beautiful as they are sound.
From A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two by Dibdin, Thomas Frognall
The manuscript covers the rectos of one hundred and four leaves, between each two of which are one or more blank leaves for annotations and portions of the printed drama.
From A Catalogue of Books in English Later than 1700 (Vol 1 of 3) Forming a portion of the library of Robert Hoe by Various
The text is printed only on one side of the leaf: so as to leave, alternately, the reverses and rectos blank--facing each other.
From A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two by Dibdin, Thomas Frognall
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.
