Appendix

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /əˈpɛn.dɪks/

Definitions

1. A supplementary section at the end of a book or document containing additional information or reference material
2. A section added to the end of a book or report that provides extra details or information relevant to the main text
3. An attachment included at the conclusion of a written work that presents supplementary data or clarifications related to the content

Etymology: The word comes from Latin "appendix," meaning something hung or attached to something larger, built from "ad" ("to") and "pendere" ("to hang"). The core image is literal: a thing dangling from a bigger body. Latin writers used it for supplements added to a book, and English took the word in that bookish sense, so an appendix is a section tacked on at the back of a text rather than woven into it. The same image gave the word its anatomical meaning. The small pouch projecting from the human large intestine was named for its resemblance to an attached extra part, and it is the sense most people now know first. The printed-book sense and the body-part sense share the single idea of something hanging off a main structure, which is why one word can describe both a page of tables at the end of a novel and a organ that surgeons sometimes remove.

Synonyms: attachment, addendum, supplement