Meanings
- uncountableThe study of multiple surviving versions of the same text with the aim of reconstructing a lost original.
1 more example
In other words, they must carry out an operation similar to the collations required by Lachmannian stemmatics, after which they must make a critical (i.e., subjective) choice. And, when constituting the text, they do not just slavishly copy their source, obvious errors included; their editions always contain an element of interpretation.
2004, Conor Fahy, “Old and New in Italian Textual Criticism”, in Raimonda Modiano, Leroy Searle, Peter L. Shillingsburg, editors, Voice, Text, Hypertext: Emerging Practices in Textual Studies, page 404Synonyms: stemmatology
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe study of multiple surviving versions of the same text with the aim of reconstructing a lost original.
More synonyms by meaning
nounthe humanistic discipline that attempts to reconstruct the transmission of a text (especially a text in manuscript form) on the basis of relations between the various surviving manuscripts (sometimes using cladistic analysis)
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Ancient Greekστέμματα“family trees, genealogy”
- Englishstemmatics
From stemma, from Ancient Greek στέμματα (stémmata, “family trees, genealogy”).
More words from Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Translations
French stemmatique
- stemmatiquestudy of multiple surviving versions of the same text
Italian stemmatica
- stemmaticastudy of multiple surviving versions of the same text
Polish stemmatyka
- stemmatykastudy of multiple surviving versions of the same text
Spanish stemmática
- stemmáticastudy of multiple surviving versions of the same text
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with stemmatics
Cite this entry
stemmatics. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/stemmatics
“stemmatics.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/stemmatics. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “stemmatics,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/stemmatics.
Source: stemmatics on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.