manuscript

Etymology

1597, from Medieval Latin manuscriptum (“writing by hand”), a calque of Germanic origin: compare Middle High German hantschrift, hantgeschrift (“manuscript”) (c. 1450), Old English handġewrit (“what is written by hand, deed, contract, manuscript”) (before 1150), Old Norse handrit (“manuscript”) (before 1300), equivalent to Latin manu (ablative of manus (“hand”)) + Latin scriptus (past participle of scribere (“to write”)). Not found in Classical Latin.

adj

1. Handwritten, or by extension manually typewritten, as opposed to being mechanically reproduced.

noun

1. A book, composition or any other document, written by hand (or manually typewritten), not mechanically reproduced.
   The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,[…]. Scribes, illuminators, and scholars held such stones directly over manuscript pages as an aid in seeing what was being written, drawn, or read. 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist
2. A single, original copy of a book, article, composition etc, written by hand or even printed, submitted as original for (copy-editing and) reproductive publication.