bustrophedon
bustrophedon is the alternative form of boustrophedon.
Meaning of boustrophedon
Noun
boustrophedon (countable and uncountable, plural boustrophedons)
- Text written such that its direction alternates on each line, resulting in a continuous stream of characters spanning multiple lines; frequently also involving the corresponding alternation of letter directionality using mirrored letters, indicating the direction of the text at any given point.
- The number of Attic boustrophedon texts is fairly small; most of those just cited have been brought down by the experts to a date close to 550 B.C., a date to which several texts of more than one line inscribed left to right may also be assigned (cf. pp.56—57 infra), besides the four-line...1980, Leslie Threatte, The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions: Phonology, page 55
Forms of bustrophedon
| plural | bustrophedons |
|---|
Words formed from bustrophedon
- bustrophedic
- bustrophedically
- bustrophedonic
- bustrophedonically
Questions about bustrophedon
- What is bustrophedon the alternative form of?
- Bustrophedon is the alternative form of boustrophedon.
Words near bustrophedon in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bustrophedon (page history and authors); boustrophedon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “bustrophedon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bustrophedon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
