boustrophedon
NounOpen English WordNet
Noun (1)
- an ancient writing system: having alternate lines written in opposite directions; literally ‘as the ox ploughs’Type of orthography, writing system
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: Gr. … turning like oxen in plowing; … to turn.
An ancient mode of writing, in alternate directions, one line from left to right, and the next from right to left (as fields are plowed), as in early Greek and Hittite.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54
The Jargon File
[from a Greek word for turning like an ox while plowing] An ancient method of writing using alternate left-to-right and right-to-left lines. This term is actually philologists' techspeak and typesetters' jargon. Erudite hackers use it for an optimization performed by some computer typesetting software and moving-head printers. The adverbial form ‘boustrophedonically’ is also found (hackers purely love constructions like this).