stichometry
Definitions
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- noun (noun) In paleography, measurement by lines of fixed or average length, as in manuscripts written before the adoption of punctuation; also, an edition or a list containing or stating such measurement.
Examples
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Scribes were paid by the stichos, or row, and stichometry, concerned with line measure, has some importance in the palaeographers toolkit.
Roger Kojecky, ‘Dating the gospels.’ Times Higher Education, December 13, 1996
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Kennedy's breakthrough, published in the journal Apeiron this week, is based on stichometry: the measure of ancient texts by standard line lengths.
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The invention of stichometry has been generally ascribed to Euthalius, a deacon in Alexandria, who, in the year 458, set forth a copy of Paul's epistles stichometrically arranged; but Tregelles is inclined to the opinion that he borrowed the system from an earlier writer, Pamphilus the martyr. However this may be, the original conception doubtless came from the stichometry of Hebrew poetry.
Elijah Porter Barrows, 'A new introduction to the study of the Bible'
Note
‘Stichometry’ comes from the Greek ‘stikhos,’ row, line, rank, verse, plus ‘metria,’ a measuring of.
