copybookn.
ΘΚΠ
society > trade and finance > management of money > keeping accounts > account or statement of > [noun] > account book > other types of account book
journal1540
bankers' book1585
shop book?1594
waste-book1613
cash-book1622
counter-book1622
pay-book1622
copybook1660
audit-booka1680
bankbook1682
transfer-book1694
malt-book1710
pay list1757
petty cash book1827
passbook1833
stock book1835
guard book1839
tommy book1841
bought-book1849
in-clearing book1872
out-clearing book1882
out-book1884
trial-book1890
1660 T. Willsford Debitor & Creditor in Scales Commerce & Trade 206 Books usually kept in great Merchants Accounts... A Copy-book of charges at home, or Forreign accounts..with a breviate of Receipts or Acquittances.
1690–1700 Order of Hospitalls sig. Fvii The Thresorers accompt-booke and the Thresorers privat Coppie-booke all made in..time, for the Audite.
2.
a. A book in which copies are written or printed for pupils to imitate. to blot one's copybook (colloquial): to commit a fault, misdemeanour or gaffe which spoils one's record.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > book > kind of book > textbook or book of instructions > [noun] > school book
schoolbook1581
copybook1598
task-book1624
class book1788
cram-book1858
workbook1873
the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > conformity with what is known, truth > disregard for truth, falsehood > lack of truth, falsity > an error, mistake > blunder [verb (intransitive)] > embarrassingly
mistread1597
to blot one's copybook1935
1598 W. Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost v. ii. 42 Faire as a text B in a Coppie booke . View more context for this quotation
1612 J. Brinsley Ludus Lit. iv. 30 Insteede of setting of copies..let euery one haue a little copie booke fastened to the top of his writing booke.
1657 Cocker (title) A Copy Book of Fair Writing.
1763 W. Borlase in Philos. Trans. 1752 (Royal Soc.) 52 510 Another part of the same flash..tore and dispersed the copy-books of the scholars.
1885 J. Payn Talk of Town I. 41 Words of wisdom, but..cut and dried, like proverbs from a copy-book.
1893 Mod. Vere Foster's Drawing Copy-books.
1935 D. L. Sayers Gaudy Night v. 85 Now, it was the College that had blotted its copy-book and had called her in as one calls in a specialist.
1958 Spectator 22 Aug. 243/1 Its Founder..had badly blotted his copybook by making a speech in favour of the beheaded Earl of Essex.
b. attributive. Applied allusively to maxims of a conventional or commonplace character; more widely, to processes, action, or conduct of an exemplary kind.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > saying, maxim, adage > self-evident truth, axiom > [adjective] > trite, well-worn
worn1569
seta1616
well-worn1621
copybook1848
overdriven1888
tired1951
the mind > goodness and badness > quality of being good > perfection > [adjective] > perfect
finea1300
perfecta1398
crownedc1405
absolute?a1425
obsolute1522
quintessential1551
absolentc1560
fashionate1593
omniperfect1678
quadriform1679
exemplary1709
perfick1771
puffick1858
twenty-twenty1875
copybook1908
perfecto1941
1848 C. Kingsley Saint's Trag. ii. ix. 124 A few copy-book headings about benevolence, and industry, and independence.
1883 ‘G. Lloyd’ Ebb & Flow I. i. 4 Well provided with stores of copy-book morality.
1886 J. K. Jerome Idle Thoughts (ed. 58) 28 It is easy to recite copy-book maxims against its [vanity's] sinfulness.
1908 Daily Chron. 16 Jan. 8/5 ‘A fine copy-book hand to be sure’... ‘Yes; and a fine copy-book mind behind it.’
1927 Times 3 May 7/2 Twice in succession he drove Mr. Cameron to the boundary past mid-off with copybook strokes.
1947 G. Greene 19 Stories 138 She had the kind of copybook psychological sense you often find in nuns.
1957 Times 15 Mar. 10/4 The aircraft made a perfectly normal and very good copybook approach.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1893; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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n.1598