Verso

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The left-hand page of an open book or the back side of a single printed leaf
2. The side of a page that is opposite the front or the inner page of a sheet in a publication is commonly acknowledged
3. The page found on the left side of an open book or the reverse side of a printed leaf

Etymology: The word "verso" is a shortened form of a Latin phrase, "in versō foliō," meaning "on the turned leaf." Early printers and bibliographers used it for the reverse side of a leaf, the side you see when you turn the page over. The phrase itself is the ablative case of "versus," the past participle of "vertō," meaning "turn," so the word is literally a note about which way the paper has been flipped. The contrasting term "recto," meaning "right" in Latin, marks the front of the leaf, the side that faces the reader when the book is open to it. Together the two words form a matched pair, one describing the face and one the back, and the "right" in "recto" refers to the side that was conventionally treated as the proper one. Bibliographers still use both terms when they describe the two faces of a single leaf.