[ad. L. transcriptiōn-em, n. of action f. transcrībĕre to transcribe, or a. F. transcription (16th c. in Godef., Compl.).]
1. The action or process of transcribing or copying. Also fig.
1598. Florio, Trascrittione, a transcription, a writing, or copying out.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, 548. The error was committed in the transcription of the copy from Ptolomies library.
1664. H. More, Myst. Iniq., 93. By a diligent comparing of Copies upon every transcription.
1762. J. Kennedy, Compl. Syst. Astronom. Chronol., ad fin. Evidence which no transcription can corrupt.
a. 1848. R. W. Hamilton, Rew. & Punishm., i. (1853), 43. We might take the Decalogue and trace its transcription upon the soul of man.
1858. J. H. Newman, Hist. Sk. (1873), III. IV. xi. 416. Manual labour … applied to the transcription and multiplication of books … was a method of instruction.
b. Transliteration.
1869. Farrar, Fam. Speech, i. (1873), 10. He succeeded in demonstrating the law of transcription, and for the first time reading these names in their proper form. Ibid., 24. The transcription into Russian letters.
2. The product of this process; a transcript; a copy.
1650. Vind. Hammond’s Addr., § 88. Besides this transcription, there is but one passage…, to which he thinkes fit to make reply.
1657. Rumsey, Org. Salutis, Ep. Ded. (1659), 11. Most medicinal Books are usually but bare transcriptions from former Writers.
1696. Phillips (ed. 5), Transcription, a Writing copied, or transcribed.
1882–3. Schaff’s Encycl. Relig. Knowl., I. 116/2. A transcription of the work, made in the beginning of the third century.
3. Mus. The arrangement, or (less properly) modification, of a composition for some voice or instrument other than that for which it was originally written; an instance of this, a transcribed piece.
1864. in Webster.
1878. E. J. Hopkins, in Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 21/1. Variations or adaptations like the popular ‘Transcriptions’ of the present day.
1885. Athenæum, 26 Dec., 851/1. To the musicianly ear the term ‘transcription’ has generally an unpleasant sound, because it frequently bears reference to some uncalled-for distortion of a composer’s original idea.
4. Roman Law. A transfer, assignment (of a debt or obligation); = L. transcriptio.
1677. Owen, Justif., Wks. 1851, V. 170. This he [Paul] did by the transcription of both the debts of Onesimus to himself.
1880. Muirhead, Gaius, III. § 129. There is transcription from thing to person when, for example, I enter to your debit a sum you already owe me by reason of a purchase, a conduction, or a partnership.
Hence Transcriptional a., of, pertaining to, or of the nature of transcription; Transcriptionally adv., on transcriptional grounds.
1881. Westcott & Hort, Grk. N. T., Introd. § 29. Transcriptional Probability is not directly … concerned with the relative excellence of rival readings, but merely with the relative fitness of each for explaining the existence of the others.
1905. J. R. Harris, in Expositor, Sept., 166. Traces of such transcriptional errors.
1907. H. S. Cronin, in Eng. Hist. Rev., April, 294. Both Latin versions must have had some transcriptional history.
1911. K. Lake, Earlier Ep. St. Paul, 419. The omission is transcriptionally slightly the more probable reading.
