Nota Bene - Wikipedia

Jump to content

Contents

move to sidebar hide

• (Top)
• 1 See also
• 2 References

• Article
• Talk

English

• Read
• Edit
• View history

Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions

• Read
• Edit
• View history

General

• What links here
• Related changes
• Upload file
• Permanent link
• Page information
• Cite this page
• Get shortened URL
• Download QR code

Print/export

• Download as PDF
• Printable version

In other projects

• Wikidata item

Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Latin phrase meaning "note well" This article is about the Latin phrase. For the suite of applications for scholars, see Nota Bene (word processor). "N.b." redirects here. For other uses, see NB (disambiguation).

Nota bene (/ˌnoʊtəˈbɛneɪ,ˈbɛni,ˈbiːni/ NOH-tə BEN-ay, BEN-ee, BEE-nee;[1][2] plural: notate bene) is the Latin phrase meaning note well.[2] In manuscripts, nota bene is abbreviated in upper-case as NB and N.B., and in lower-case as n.b. and nb; the editorial usages of nota bene and notate bene first appeared in the English style of writing around the year 1711.[3][4][5] In Modern English, since the 14th century, the editorial usage of NB is common to the legal style of writing of documents to direct the reader's attention to a thematically relevant aspect of the subject that qualifies the matter being litigated.[6]

In medieval manuscripts, the editorial marks used to draw the reader's attention to a supporting text also are called nota bene marks; however, the catalogue of medieval editorial marks does not include the NB abbreviation. The medieval equivalents to the n.b.-mark are anagrams derived from the four letters of the Latin word nota, thus the abbreviation DM for dignum memoria ("worth remembering") and the typographic index symbol of the manicule (☞), the little hand that indicates the start of the relevant supporting text.[7]

See also

[edit] Look up nota bene, NB, N.B., nb, n.b., nota, D.M., DM, or manicule in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Annotation – Item of metadata attached to a document
• Cf. – Latin abbreviation meaning "compare"
• i.e. – Latin abbreviation meaning "that is"
• List of Latin abbreviations
• List of Latin phrases
• List of legal Latin terms
• q.v. – Latin phrase meaning "which see"
• viz. – Latin abbreviation meaning "namely"

References

[edit]

1. ^ "nota bene". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/2426898483. Retrieved 2025-04-12.
2. ^ a b "nota bene". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. OCLC 1120411289. Retrieved 2025-04-12.
3. ^ Addison, Joseph (1891). The Works of Joseph Addison. W. W. Gibbings. p. 283.
4. ^ Addison, Joseph (2004). "No. 102 Wednesday, June 27, 1711". Project Gutenberg.
5. ^ Harper, Douglas. "nota bene". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2016-03-02.
6. ^ "nota bene". HM Courts & Tribunals Service – Glossary of terms – Latin. Her Majesty's Courts Service, United Kingdom. Archived from the original on 2012-10-03. Retrieved 2012-09-28.
7. ^ Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), p. 44.

This article related to Latin words and phrases is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information.

• v
• t
• e

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nota_bene&oldid=1327098141" Categories:

• Latin literary phrases
• Legal terminology
• Latin words and phrases stubs

Hidden categories:

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Latin-language text
• All stub articles

Search Search Toggle the table of contents Nota bene 27 languages Add topic