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plural incunabula
(printing) A book, single sheet, or image that was printed before the year 1501 in Europe. quotations examples
Sebastian, a profound student of such lore, had long believed that the book was a mere medieval legend; and he had been startled as well as gratified when he found this copy on the shelves of a dealer in old manuscripts and incunabula.
August 1935, Clark Ashton Smith, “The Treader of the Dust”, in Weird Tales
Something about him reminded me of one of those figures from old-fashioned playing cards or the sort used by fortune-tellers, a print straight from the pages of an incunabulum: his presence was both funereal and incandescent, like a curse dressed in its Sunday best.
2004, Luisa Graves, The Shadow of the Wind, translation of original by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
(chiefly in the plural) The cradle, birthplace, or origin of something. examples