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vellum

UK/ˈvɛləm/US/ˈvɛləm/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,919 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: vella

Vellum is fine parchment made from calf skin. Written on vellum, a vellum manuscript, bound in vellum.

It lasts far longer than paper, which is why the oldest surviving manuscripts are on it and why British acts of parliament were printed on vellum until recently. The name is from the Latin for a calf.

Original authors were the barons and King John of England. Uploaded by Earthsound. · Public domain

Definitions of vellum

  1. 1nounvellumFine parchment made from calf skin.C1

    “Medieval monks copied the Bible by hand onto vellum.”

vellum is a material.

Where it comes from

Old French velin comes from Latin vitulinus, of a calf.

  1. Latin

    vitulinus — of a calf

  2. Old French

    velin

  3. English, today

    vellum

From Old French velin (French vélin), from Latin vitulinus (“of a calf”), as if derived from Old French veel (“veal”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Antiques & Collecting

Practise this word

vellum in the wild

  • However, the term codex is usually reserved for older manuscript books, which mostly used sheets of vellum, parchment, or papyrus, rather than paper.

    Codex

  • The generic term animal membrane is sometimes used by libraries and museums that wish to avoid distinguishing between parchment and vellum.

    Parchment

  • The making of vellum involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching on a frame, and scraping of the skin with a lunellum.

    Vellum

  • Modern paper vellum is made of plant cellulose fibers and gets its name from having a similar use to actual vellum, as well as its high quality.

    Vellum

  • Thought to have been written during the 1270s, it is made up of 45 vellum leaves.

    Codex Regius

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.