Margents

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The decorative edges or borders surrounding the margins of a page, often found in illuminated manuscripts or printed books; the ornamental lines or patterns that frame the text area in a document; designing or embellishing the outermost area of a written or printed page to enhance visual appeal
2. Embellishments forming the outer border of handwritten or printed pages; decorative motifs outlining the page margins in historical or artistic texts; the framing elements used to delineate and beautify the edges around written content
3. Ornamental borders that decorate the periphery of a page in books or manuscripts; artistic designs placed along the outside margins to highlight or enrich the text block; margin decorations functioning as a visual enclosure of written or printed material

Etymology: "Margents" is the plural of "margent," a word that has been used in English since the 1500s, borrowed from the Latin "margo" meaning "edge" or "border." Its meaning was narrow: the blank space bordering the text on a page, and the notes or decorative ornament that might fill it. The spelling with "g" was shaped by its Latin and French ancestry, and "margin," with a later Anglicised spelling, now dominates the sense of a page's edge. The plural "margents" survives mainly in older or literary contexts, and today most readers meet the word in the sense of ornamented borders in old manuscripts and printed books, where it describes the decorated frame around a text.

Synonyms: margins, edges, borders, outlines, perimeters