Octavos

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A size of book or paper that is created by folding a single sheet into eight leaves, resulting in sixteen pages
2. A term used to describe a book format where each page is about the same size as a standard sheet folded thrice
3. The designation given to printed works that are composed using sheets of paper divided into eight parts to form smaller pages

Etymology: "Octavos" is simply the plural of "octavo", so the story belongs to the singular. The word comes from Latin "octavo", the ablative of "octavus", meaning "eighth". A printer's octavo is a sheet folded so that it yields eight leaves, which is why the format is named for the number eight. The word is a doublet of "octave", "oitava" and "ochava". Those words all descend from the same Latin ordinal, and they took different paths into their languages. "Octave" carried the idea of eight into music, where the eighth note of a scale sets the interval, while the printing term kept the plain counting sense.