A catchword is a
word
A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...
placed at the foot of a handwritten or
printed
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and Printmaking, images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabon ...
page that is meant to be bound along with other pages in a book. The word anticipates the first word of the following page. It was meant to help the
bookbinder
Bookbinding is the process of building a book, usually in codex format, from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools, or in modern publishing, by a series of automated processes. Firstly, one binds the sheets of papers alon ...
or printer make sure that the leaves were bound in the right order or that the pages were set up in the press in the right order. Catchwords appear in some medieval
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
s, and appear again in printed books late in the fifteenth century. The practice became widespread in the mid sixteenth century, and prevailed until the arrival of industrial printing techniques late in the eighteenth century.
Theodore Low Devinne's 1901 guide on ''Correct Composition'' had this to say:
For more than three centuries printers of books appended at the foot of every page the first word or syllable of the next page. This catchword was supposed to be needed by the reader to make clear the connection between the two pages; but the catchword is now out of use, and it is not missed.
See also
* ''
Reclamans''
*
Page numbering
Page numbering is the process of applying a sequence of numbers (or letters, or Roman numerals) to the pages of a book or other document. The number itself, which may appear in various places on the page, can be referred to as a page number or as ...
, a more modern system with a similar function
Notes
References
* De Hamel, Christopher. ''Scribes and Illuminators.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. 41.
* Gaskell, Philip. ''A New Introduction to Bibliography.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. 52–53.
*
McKerrow, Ronald B. ''An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964. 82.
* Roberts, Matt T., and Don Etherington,
Bookbinding and the Conservation of books: A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology'
{{Book structure
Printing terminology
Bookbinding
Book terminology