inscription

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. n. A marking, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. n. A piece of material, such as a stone or metal tablet, that is inscribed.
4. n. An enrollment or a registration of names.
5. n. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
6. n. The usually informal dedication of a book or an artistic work.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of inscribing, in any sense of that word.
2. n. Inscribed symbols, letters, or words; specifically, a descriptive, explanatory, or illustrative memorandum, as a name, title, motto, panegyric, etc., written, engraved, or stamped, as on a monument, a medal, etc.: as, an inscription on a tombstone, on a gem, a book, or a picture; the inscriptions on the obverse and reverse of a coin or a medal.
3. n. Specifically In archœol., a historical, religious, or other record cut, impressed, painted, or written on stone, brick, metal, or other hard surface: as, the inscription on the Rosetta or the Moabite stone; the cuneiform inscriptions on rocks or brick cylinders; the inscriptions on the Egyptian temples or in the Roman catacombs; the inscriptions on Greek vases, votive tablets of terra-cotta, etc. It is to such inscriptions that our knowledge of Egyptian, Assyrian, and some other ancient languages and institutions is chiefly due; and study of the mass of such records left by the Greeks and Romans has corrected and completed an understanding of the history and civilization of these peoples, and contributed greatly to what we know of their language, their laws, their methods of thought, their traditions, and their public and private institutions and industries of all kinds.
4. n. A form of complimentary presentation or offering of a book or work of art, less elaborate than a dedication.
5. n. In early church music, a sign or motto, or both combined, placed at the beginning of a canon written in an enigmatical manner, to show how it was to be resolved. The inscription was often designedly more puzzling than the canon itself.
6. n. In the civil law, a consent by an accuser that, if the accusation be false, he will submit to the same punishment which would have been inflicted upon the accused had he been guilty.
7. n. Entry on the calendar, as of a cause in court.
8. n. In geometry, the inscribingof one figure in another; also, the state of being so inscribed.
9. n. A tendinous line interrupting the fleshy fibers of a muscle: seen especially in the abdominal muscles.

Wiktionary

1. n. Text carved on a wall or plaque, such as a memorial or gravestone.
2. n. The text on a coin.
3. n. Words written in the front of a book as a dedication.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act or process of inscribing.
2. n. That which is inscribed; something written or engraved; especially, a word or words written or engraved on a solid substance for preservation or public inspection
3. n. (Anat.) A line of division or intersection.
4. n. An address, consignment, or informal dedication, as of a book to a person, as a mark of respect or an invitation of patronage.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a short message (as in a book or musical work or on a photograph) dedicating it to someone or something
2. n. the activity of inscribing (especially carving or engraving) letters or words
3. n. letters inscribed (especially words engraved or carved) on something