A.Word.A.Day --recto

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Today's Word

recto

PRONUNCIATION:

(REK-toh)

MEANING:

noun: The front of a leaf, the side that is to be read first.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin recto folio (right-hand leaf), from rectus (right). Ultimately from the Indo-European reg- (to move in a straight line, lead, or rule) that is also the source of regent, regime, direct, rectangle, erect, rectum, alert, source, surge, arrogate, abrogate, regent, and supererogatory. Earliest documented use: 1789.

NOTES:

In languages that are written left-to-right, such as English, recto is the right-hand page. In languages written right-to-left, such as Arabic, recto is the left-hand page. The other side is called verso.

USAGE:

“The foot of the opening recto displays an unframed heraldic device: the royal arms of England.”
The Opicius Poems; Renaissance Quarterly (New York); Sep 2002.

See more usage examples of recto in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by its publication as decisively severed from its author as in parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book "means" thereafter, perforce, -- both grammatically and actually, -- whatever meaning this or that reader gets out of it. -James Branch Cabell, novelist, essayist, critic (14 Apr 1879-1958)

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