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illustration Copybook

Copybook

[KA-pee-book]

Part of speech: adjective

Origin: Old French and Old English, date unknown

1.

Exactly in accordance with established criteria; perfect.

2.

Tritely conventional.

Examples of Copybook in a sentence

"Tony did a copybook landing in the flight simulator."

"Trina spoke in copybook inspirational quotes."

About Copybook

“Copy” comes from the Old French “copier” and directly from the Medieval Latin “copiare,” meaning "to transcribe." “Book” stems from the Old English “boc,” meaning "book, writing, written document."

Did you Know?

While the adjective means “exactly perfect,” the noun form describes an old-fashioned book of handwriting to learn from. Good penmanship was considered a key business skill in the 18th century, so copybooks of the time were often geared toward those wishing to learn business skills. They included chapters on accounting and business management. Students also learned from geography copybooks, where students were first asked to copy names onto unlabeled maps, then copy entire maps onto a latitude/longitude grid.

illustration Copybook

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