Dictionary

octavo en · NOUN

Etymology

From Latin octavo. Doublet of octave, oitava, and ochava.

Meanings

1. (qualifier:paper) A sheet of paper 7 to 10 inches (= 17.78 to 25.4 cm) high and 4.5 to 6 inches (= 11.43 to 15.24 cm) wide, the size varying with the large original sheet used to create it. It is made by folding the original sheet three times to produce eight leaves.
2. A book of octavo pages.
   • He was also much of a politician; too much, perhaps, for his station. There fell lately into my hands, in London, a collection he had made of all the principal pamphlets, relating to public affairs, from 1641 to 1717; many of the volumes are wanting as appears by the numbering, but there still remain eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo. 1909 [1793], Benjamin Franklin, edited by Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (The Harvard Classics; 1), U.S.A.: P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, published 1937, page 8:

Forms

Relateds

foolscap · A4 · A3

Synonyms

O (book size) · 8º (paper size) · 8vo (book size) · 8º (book size) · 8vo (paper size)

Translations (3)

ca octau (paper size) · ca octau (book size) · cs osmerka (paper size)