marginalia

plural noun

mar·​gi·​na·​lia ˌmär-jə-ˈnā-lē-ə 

1

: marginal notes or embellishments (as in a book)

2

: nonessential items

the meat and marginalia of American politics

—Saturday Rev.

Did you know?

Where does marginalia come from?

In the introduction to his essay titled “Marginalia,” Edgar Allan Poe wrote: “In getting my books, I have always been solicitous of an ample margin; this not so much through any love of the thing in itself, however agreeable, as for the facility it affords me of penciling suggested thoughts, agreements and differences of opinion, or brief critical comments in general.” At the time “Marginalia” was first published in 1844, marginalia was only a few decades old despite describing something—notes in the margin of a text—that had existed for centuries. An older word, apostille (or apostil), refers to a single annotation made in a margin, but that word is rarely used today. Even if you are not, like Poe, simply ravenous for scribbling in your own books, you likely know marginalia as a telltale sign that someone has read a particular volume before you.

Examples of marginalia in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

This has long been where the societal marginalia are contained, not just refugees but other minority groups. —Dennis Harvey, Variety, 8 Dec. 2023

Hawthorne’s juvenile marginalia are similarly revealing, as seen in his childhood Latin textbook. —Ted Scheinman, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 May 2023

Housed at the East Hampton Library in New York, a surviving copy of this pamphlet features marginalia added in 1798 by John Lyon Gardiner, who as a child witnessed an August 20, 1780, meeting between André, Simcoe and Henry Clinton (the British commander-in-chief in America). —Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks, Smithsonian Magazine, 16 May 2022

The interstitial collage elements play the role of footnotes, or more accurately, the marginalia of a slightly older, wiser reader revisiting a beloved book. —Christina Catherine Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 30 Jan. 2023

Word History

Etymology

New Latin, from Medieval Latin, neuter plural of marginalis

First Known Use

1819, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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