‖ duodecimo
(djuːəʊˈdɛsɪməʊ)
[L. (in) duodecimō in a twelfth (sc. of a sheet), abl. of duodecimus twelfth.]
1. The size of a book, or of the page of a book, in which each leaf is one-twelfth of a whole sheet: usually abbreviated 12mo.
| 1658 Phillips s.v., A book is said to be in Duodecimo, when it is of twelve leaves in a sheet. 1688 Catalogus Librorum..per Benj. Walford 137 English Miscellanies in Octavo and Duodecimo. 1759 Dilworth Pope 47 His miscellanies in duodecimo. 1837–9 Hallam Hist. Lit. (1847) I. 451 The book is in duodecimo, and contains but eighty-five pages. 1878 Browning Poets Croisic 56 Some fifty leaves in duodecimo. |
| fig. 1832 E. Ind. Sketch Bk. I. 49 Mrs. Erskine was a beauty in duodecimo. |
2. A book or volume of this size.
| 1712 Addison Spect. No. 529 ¶1 The Author of a Duodecimo. 1807 Director II. 348 Some of the duodecimos of our circulating libraries. 1851 Carlyle Sterling iii. iii. (1872) 190 A tiny duodecimo without name attached. |
| fig. a 1839 Praed Poems (1864) I. 282 Those delicious things, Which constitute Love's joys and woes In pretty duodecimos. |
3. attrib. or adj.| 1781 W. Mason Let. 29 Mar. in Walpole's Lett. (1858) VIII. 18 note, A hundred duodecimo pages. 1791 Boswell Johnson an. 1750, It was published in six duodecimo volumes. 1824 L. Murray Eng. Gram. I. Pref. 3 The last Duodecimo edition of his Grammar. 1837–9 Hallam Hist. Lit. I. iii. i. §148 The duodecimo division of the sheet. 1850 W. Irving Goldsmith xxx. 296 An abridgement in one volume duodecimo. |
b. fig. Applied to a person or thing of minute or diminutive size.
| 1777 Sheridan Sch. Scand. ii. ii, Lady Betty..was taking the dust in Hyde Park, in a sort of duodecimo phaeton. 1833 New Monthly Mag. XXXVII. 46 All the little monarchies and duodecimo princedoms. 1860 All Year Round No. 38. 283 He bent, and bowed, and touched his heart with his hand, like a little duodecimo Lord Chesterfield. |