Meanings
plural octavos
- mediaA book of octavo pages.
1 more example
He was also much of a politician; too much, perhaps, for his station. There fell lately into my hands, in London, a collection he had made of all the principal pamphlets, relating to public affairs, from 1641 to 1717; many of the volumes are wanting as appears by the numbering, but there still remain eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo.
1909 [1793], Benjamin Franklin, edited by Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (The Harvard Classics; 1), U.S.A.: P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, published 1937, page 8
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA sheet of paper 7 to 10 inches (= 17.78 to 25.4 cm) high and 4.5 to 6 inches (= 11.43 to 15.24 cm) wide, the size varying with the large original sheet used to create it. It is made by folding the original sheet three times to produce eight leaves.
book size
More synonyms by meaning
nounthe size of a book whose pages are made by folding a sheet of paper three times to form eight leaves
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
Translations
Catalan octau, octau
- octaupaper size
- octaubook size
Czech osmerka
- osmerkapaper size
Cite this entry
octavo. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/octavo
“octavo.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/octavo. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “octavo,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/octavo.
Source: octavo on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.