pamphlets

Noun

pamphlet (plural pamphlets)

1. A small, brief printed work, consisting either of a folded sheet of paper, or several sheets bound together into a booklet with only a paper cover, formerly containing literary compositions, newsletters, and newspapers, but now chiefly informational matter.
   • His gayeſt flooriſhes are but Gaſcoignes Weedes, or Tarletons trickes, or Greenes crankes, or Marlowes bravadoes; his jeſts, but the dregges of common ſcurrilitie, or the ſhreds of the Theater, or the of-ſcouring of new pamflets: […]1593, Gabriell Haruey [i.e., Gabriel Harvey], Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. A Preparative to Certaine Larger Discourses, Intituled Nashes S. Fame, London: […] Iohn Wolfe...
2. (specifically) Such a work containing political material or discussing matters of controversy.
   • So far is it from the kenne of theſe wretched projectors of ours that beſcraull their Pamflets every day with new formes of government for our Church.1642 (indicated as 1641), John Milton, “That Church-governement is Prescrib’d in the Gospell, and that to Say Otherwise is Unsound”, in The Reason of Church-governement Urg’d against Prelaty […]...
3. (obsolete) A brief handwritten work.
   • Christ now to Thee I crye of mercy and of grace and graunt of Thy goodnes to every maner reder ful understandyng in this leude pamflet to have, and let no man wene other cause in this werke that is verily the soth.[c. 1385, Thomas Usk, chapter IX, in R. Allen Shoaf, editor, The Testament of Love (Middle English Texts) (in Middle English), Kalamazoo, Mich.: […] [F]or TEAMS (The Consortium for the Teaching of...

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