scriptorium

From Medieval Latin scrīptōrium, from Latin scrīptōrius (“pertaining to writing”). Doublet of escritoire.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /skɹɪpˈtɔː.ɹɪəm/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /skɹɪpˈtɔɹ.i.əm/
• Hyphenation: scrip‧to‧ri‧um

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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scriptorium (plural scriptoria or scriptoriums)

1. (countable) A room set aside for the copying, writing, or illuminating of manuscripts and records, especially such a room in a monastery.
   • 1912, G[ilbert] Roger Hudleston, “Scriptorium”, in Charles G[eorge] Herbermann, Edward A[loysius] Pace, Condé B[enoist] Pallen, Thomas J[oseph] Shahan, John J[oseph] Wynne, editors, The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church, volume XIII (Revelation–Simon Stock), New York, N.Y.: Robert Appleton Company, →OCLC, page 635, column 1:

     The rules of the scriptorium varied in different monasteries, but artificial light was forbidden for fear of injury to the manuscripts, and silence was always enforced.

   • 1999, Seamus Heaney, “Introduction”, in Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page xxii:

     Very soon, however, I hesitated. It was labour-intensive work, scriptorium-slow.

   • 2008, James Ronald Royse, chapter 7, in Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri, page 499:

     Nevertheless, Aland criticized Martin's suggestion that the codex was the product of the scriptorium attached to a monastery,⁵³⁶ on the grounds that there is no evidence for the existence of monasteries in the year 200, or for the existence of scriptoria at all connected with the Church at that early date.

   • 2009, Fred S. Kleiner, Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective, 13th edition, volume 1, page 289:

     Among the earliest Hiberno-Saxon illuminated manuscripts is the Book of Durrow, a Gospel book that may have been written and decorated in the monastic scriptorium at Iona, although its provenance is not documented.

• scribe
• script

Borrowed from Latin scrīptōrium.

• IPA^(key): /ˌskrɪpˈtoː.ri.ʏm/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: scrip‧to‧ri‧um
• Rhymes: -oːriʏm

scriptorium n (plural scriptoria, no diminutive)

1. scriptorium (place where manuscripts are produced)

Borrowed from Medieval Latin scrīptōrium. Doublet of écritoire.

• IPA^(key): /skʁip.tɔ.ʁjɔm/

scriptorium m (plural scriptoria)

1. a scriptorium

• “scriptorium”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

From scrīptor (“writer, author”) +‎ -ium or equivalently, scrībō (“to write”) +‎ -tōrium (suffix forming nouns denoting places).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [skriːpˈtoː.ri.ũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [skripˈtɔː.ri.um]

scrīptōrium n (genitive scrīptōriī or scrīptōrī); second declension

1. writing desk
2. writing room

Second-declension noun (neuter).

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

scrīptōrium

1. inflection of scrīptōrius:
   1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular
   2. accusative masculine singular

• “scriptorium”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• "scriptorium", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)