Art & MusicGreek → English
Xylography
/zaɪˈlɒɡrəfi/noun
Printing from a carved wooden block, the technique behind European block books and Japanese ukiyo-e.
The Greek roots
ξύλον
xýlon
wood
γράφειν
gráphein
to write
Literally: “wood writing”
The story of the word
Wood beat movable type to Europe and then outlasted it for pictures, because a block sits at the same height as metal type and prints in the same pass. Bibliographers coined the English word early in the nineteenth century when they needed a label for the block books printed before Gutenberg's press swept the field. Xýlon also gives xylophone, wood sound, and xylem, the woody tissue hauling water up a tree.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → modern coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
xylophonexylemxylene
In a sentence
Hokusai's wave is xylography: several blocks, one per colour, registered by hand.