Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A fine parchment made from calfskin, lambskin, or kidskin and used for the pages and binding of books.
- n. A work written or printed on this parchment.
- n. A heavy off-white fine-quality paper resembling this parchment.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The skin of calves prepared for writing, printing, or painting by long exposure in a bath of lime and by repeated rubbings with a burnisher; also, the skin of goats or kids similarly prepared.
Wiktionary
- n. A type of parchment paper made from the skin of a lamb, baby goat, or calf.
- n. A writing paper of very high quality.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A fine kind of parchment, usually made from calfskin, and rendered clear and white, -- used as for writing upon, and for binding books.
WordNet 3.0
- n. fine parchment prepared from the skin of a young animal e.g. a calf or lamb
- n. a heavy creamy-colored paper resembling parchment
Etymologies
- Middle English velim, from Old French velin, from veel, calf; see veal.
Examples
“Among the highlights will be a striking leaf with gold script on blue vellum from the celebrated "Blue Qur'an" produced in North Africa or the Near East in the ninth-10th century (estimate: £ 200,000 - £ 300,000).”
“If whole generations -- whole cultures -- were enabled, by such artistry, to see their own illusions as artifacts in vellum (or celluloid, or CRT), much would have been accomplished.”
“They are all printed from large, clear type on a superior quality of flexible paper and bound in English vellum cloth, assorted colors, containing charming female heads lithographed in twelve colors, as inlays; the titles being stamped in harmonizing colors of ink or foil.”
“The fifty-eight pages are sewn in a single gathering and bound with a sheet of old vellum, which is now partially discolored from use.”
The Huffington Post: Carolyn Vega: The ABCs of an Unknown Duchemin
“The four corners of every book, however, should always be protected by leather or, better still, by vellum, which is a firmer material -- otherwise they will rapidly wear off, and the boards will break easily at their corners.”
“They imitated the old vellum so closely that it was even called vellum and is so known to this day.”
“When finished, the clean, shining, cream-colored skin was known as vellum, [12] or parchment.”
“Whilst they trust to your vain vellum, which is almost sure to sell”
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892
“Though written in the ancient manner -- using goose-quill pens on 2-foot-tall sheets of polished calfskin called vellum -- the Bible also reflects contemporary times.”
“All the ancient manuscripts are either upon parchment, or vellum, which is calf-skin, and a great deal finer than the common parchment.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘vellum’.
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The Bindery
A list of bookbinding terms and phrases, for assembling new or repairing/reassembling old books.
perfect binding, animal glue, spine, textblock, polyvinyl acetate, double-fan adhesi..., board, backing, rounding, bone, book cloth, pasteboard and 260 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Penmanship
Spencerian method, Palmer method, Platt R. Spencer, cursive, round hand, running hand, handwriting, stylus, pen, vellum, penmanship, script and 85 more...
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Writing Materials
Pens, pencils, paper etc
space pen, quill, laptop, pencil, stylus, crayon, chalk, vellum
reesetee I believe it. After all, EVERY page was vellum. You don't want to know about the process, either. Yuck.
When I used to catalogue rare books, I always found it fascinating that you could sometimes still see the scars and blemishes from the skin of the unfortunate animal(s) used to make the vellum. Feb 13, 2007
chained_bear I remember reading in college that, during the Middle Ages, it took forty sheep to make one Bible. Forty sheep! I still can't really believe that. Feb 13, 2007