What does typescript mean?
Typescript is a document or passage produced by typing, most often a typewritten copy made on a typewriter and intended for editorial or publication use. In modern publishing it can also mean text prepared for typesetting, and the historical sense “typeface” is occasionally encountered. The word combines type, referring to printing or typewriting, with script, meaning written text. Because typewriters once supplied manuscripts to editors and compositors, typescript was an important intermediate stage between an author's handwritten draft and a printed book. Today it sounds distinctly historical, archival, or editorial rather than technological; people preparing documents on computers say typed manuscript or electronic text instead. Even so, typescript remains useful in literary scholarship and publishing history, where it distinguishes the particular typed copy an editor revised from later proofs or printed editions. The term therefore carries both a material meaning—a text embodied in type—and a bibliographic meaning: an intermediate version surviving in an author's or editor's papers.
nounA document or passage produced with type, especially one typed on a typewriter or prepared for typesetting. By extension, it can also mean a typeface or a style of printed type.
- A document or passage typed on a typewriter, especially one submitted for editing or publication.
- A text prepared for typesetting or produced through typesetting.
- A typeface or style of printed type.
"The editor returned the typescript with several revisions marked in red."
"The editor returned the typescript with several revisions marked in red."
"A typescript of the unfinished novel was discovered among the author's papers."
The regular plural is typescripts, used for multiple typed documents or copies.
"Several typescripts of the play survive in the archive."
Before computers, the typescript was the working copy that stood between an author's manuscript and the printed page.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does typescript come from?
The word combines English type with script, “written text,” and was used for a document produced in type. Type ultimately comes from Greek typos, meaning “model” or “pattern,” while script derives from Latin scriptus, the past participle of scribere, meaning “to write.” Related English forms include typewriter and typewriting, while transcribe and prescribe descend from the same Latin writing root.
How typescript is actually used
The word is chiefly British and American editorial and publishing vocabulary. Its modern use often has a historical or archival tone, especially when referring to documents produced on typewriters.
Easily confused with typescript
A transcript records spoken words in writing, whereas a typescript is text produced or set in type.