Words & WritingGreek → English
Colophon
/ˈkɒləfɒn/noun
A note at the end of a book recording its printer, date and place, or the publisher's emblem on the title page.
The Greek roots
κολοφών
kolophṓn
summit, finishing stroke
Literally: “the finishing stroke”
Follow a root:κολοφών1 word
The story of the word
Greek had a proverb about adding the colophon, meaning to put the last touch to a thing. Ancient writers connected it to the Ionian city of Colophon, whose cavalry supposedly settled any battle they joined late, though it is just as possible the city took its name from the ordinary word for a summit. Before title pages existed, the colophon was the only place a manuscript said who made it and when, which is how scribes signed their work.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
In a sentence
The colophon says the book was set in Bembo and printed in Verona.
Their colophon is a small dolphin, unchanged since 1930.