incipit means the first few words of a text, especially its first line.
incipit is pronounced /ˈɪnsɪpɪt/.
Why “incipit” is a great word
The opening words or first line of a text, or the initial bars of a musical composition. Borrowed from Latin incipit ('it begins'), third person singular present indicative of incipere ('to begin'), first attested in English in 1897. Unlike an explicit (the formal closing phrase) or a title (a conventional, external label), an incipit is the work's own inaugural breath, the threshold where silence yields to form. It is the worn vellum of a medieval manuscript declaring Hic incipit..., the four descending notes that announce Beethoven's Fifth, or the ink-dark certainty of 'Call me Ishmael' unfurling on a blank page—the singular, irreversible moment when nothing becomes something, and the reader is already inside.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin incipit (“it begins”).
noun
- The first few words of a text, especially its first line.
- The first few bars of a piece of music.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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