Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Defining the indefinable

Texture: (n)(v) The process or art of weaving; to construct by or as by weaving; to give a texture to

Textile: (adj)(n) that has been or may be woven; pertaining to a man-made fibre or filament; non-natrist; applied to place; a woven fabric; any kind of cloth

Pretext: (n)(adj)(v) A reason put forward to conceal one's real purpose or object; an excuse or pretense; bordered, edged, or fringed; to use or put forward (a reason) as a pretext or excuse; to pretend, feign

Context: (n)(adj)(v) the weaving together of words and sentences; construction of speech, literary composition woven or knit together; to weave together

Hypertext: (n) text which does not form a single sequence and which may be read in various orders

Subtext: (n) appearing below other text on a page; an underlying theme in a piece of writing

Textuary: (adj)(n) Of or belonging to the text; textual; one who adheres strictly to the letter of scripture

Retexture: (v) the action or process of breaking up a whole into its component parts; unravelling; dissolution

Textual: (n) of a person; well acquainted with 'texts' or authors; well-read; literally exact in giving the text

Textology: (n) the study and analysis of the evolution of a text or texts, especially through rewriting, editing, and translation; the study of text production

Paratext: [not found in OED] All the material surrounding a text; i.e. the author's name, the editor's name, the front cover of the book, chapter titles, etc.


***All definitions are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary

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