Ibidem

Part of speech: adverb

Pronunciation: /ɪbˈaɪ̯dəm/

Definitions

1. A term used in academic writing to refer to a source already cited, indicating that the information follows directly from the same source
2. A Latin expression employed in references to denote that the cited material comes from the previously mentioned work
3. A conventional notation in scholarly texts indicating "in the same place," often used for source citations

Etymology: Ibidem is a Latin adverb built from two parts: "ibi," meaning "there" or "in that place," and "idem," meaning "the same." Put together, "ibidem" means "in the same place," and English speakers borrowed it as a citation shorthand meaning "in the same work," so a scholar writing "ibid." is pointing back to the source just cited without repeating its title. The Latin "idem" is itself a compound, combining a pronoun stem with a suffix that adds emphasis and "-dem," also found in "tandem" and "item." Its ancestry runs back through Proto-Italic to Proto-Indo-European, but in English the word is simply a Latin loan adopted for scholarly referencing, carrying its original spatial sense of "same place" into a bibliographic one.