Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The page size obtained by folding a whole sheet into four leaves.
- noun A book composed of pages of this size.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A size of book in which the leaf is one fourth of a described or implied size of paper.
- Noting the size of a book in which a sheet makes four leaves: as, a quarto volume; being of the size or shape of the leaves of a quarto; as, quarto paper; a quarto edition.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Having four leaves to the sheet; of the form or size of a quarto.
- noun Originally, a book of the size of the fourth of sheet of printing paper; a size leaves; in present usage, a book of a square or nearly square form, and usually of large size.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun paper A size of paper (7.5"-10" x 10"-12.5")(190-254 x 254-312 mm). Formed by folding and cutting one of several standard sizes of paper (15"-20" x 20"-25")(381-508 x 508-635 mm) twice to form 4 leaves (eight sides).
- noun printing A book size, corresponding to the paper size.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the size of a book whose pages are made by folding a sheet of paper twice to form four leaves
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Ephorus, in quarto historiarum libro, orbem terrarum inter Scythas,
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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Latin, Lipsiae, 1766, in quarto, with the learned notes of Kochler and Reiske, and some extracts of geography and natural history from
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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They form six volumes in quarto; and as Basil is the worst, so
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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Shakespeare's "Pericles" exists only in a lousy quarto, which is so badly transcribed scholars assume it was done by someone jotting down the script from memory after having seen the show (the early modern equivalent of the grainy pirated videos you can buy on the subway).
Longing for Great Lost Works Stephen Marche 2009
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The remainder of the first period has filled two volumes in quarto, being the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes of the octavo edition.]
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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Although the book is of the size called quarto, the method of printing must have been page by page, so it is doubtful that each sheet was folded twice in the usual quarto manner, but more probable that it was printed four pages to a sheet of paper approximately 9 1/8 by 14 inches, which was folded once.
Doctrina Christiana The first book printed in the Philippines, Manila, 1593. Anonymous 1951
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I print the book at my own expense, in quarto, which is to be sold for six shillings, with the music.
Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) Melville, Lewis 1921
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In May, 1905, was celebrated at St. Louis, Mo., his twenty-fifth anniversary as bishop in the church, which proceedings of this Silver Jubilee have been published in a journal called the quarto-centennial that will do ample justice to this great hero which, with our feeble pen we are unable to do.
Progressive Missions in the South and Addresses; With Illustrations and Sketches of Missionary Workers and Ministers and Bishops' Wives Sara J. Duncan 1906
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I print the book at my own expense, in quarto, which is to be sold for six shillings, with the music.
Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) Lewis Melville 1903
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India, being used in what we should call quarto sheets, and in Farther
The Booklover and His Books Harry Lyman Koopman 1898
reesetee commented on the word quarto
Also 4to. In printing and book collecting, a book of distinctly squarish shape made from printed sheets folded into quarters (giving eight pages). Also used in a general way to describe books about the size and shape of a modern standard telephone directory.
February 25, 2008
johnmperry commented on the word quarto
Not just any old sheet of paper.
A size of paper (7.5"-10" x 10"-12.5"). Formed by folding and cutting a standard large sheet of paper (15"-20" x 20"-25") twice to form 4 leaves (eight sides).
Paper sizes such as quarto, American quarto, octavo, 16mo etc. really only continue in North America. Most of elsewhere uses ISO paper sizes - A0, A1 etc. China of course has its own sizes.
July 25, 2008
RevBrently commented on the word quarto
From p. 24 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":
Vellum-bound folios and quartos receded in vistas, and thousands of ancient and modern works on theology, canon law, dogma, patrology, patristics, hagiography, mysticism and even magic, and almost as many on secular history, art and travel.
January 21, 2014