siglum

/ˈsɪɡləm/

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Late Latin siglum (“abbreviation”), possibly a contracted form of: * sigillum (“figurine, statuette; seal”), from signum (“figure, statue; seal, signet; mark, sign”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut, sever; to cut off”) or *sekʷ- (“to follow”)) + -ulum (diminutive suffix); or * singulum, a singular form of singulus (“apiece; every; single”, adjective), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one; together”). The plural form sigla is a learned borrowing from Late Latin sigla.

siglum means A letter or other symbol that stands for a name or word; specifically, one used in a modern literary work to refer to an early version of a text. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.

siglum is pronounced /ˈsɪɡləm/.

Why “siglum” is a great word

SIGLUM — [Noun] A letter or other symbol used to represent a word, name, or manuscript source, especially in textual criticism. Learned borrowing from Late Latin siglum ('abbreviation'), possibly a contracted form of sigillum ('seal, figurine'), from signum ('mark, sign'), or from singulum ('single one'), from singulus ('single'). Unlike an abbreviation, which truncates a longer form, or a general symbol, which is a broad semantic vessel, a siglum is a deliberately austere, assigned key. It is the pencilled α pointing to a Byzantine codex, the bold Q denoting a hypothetical Gospel source, or the simple asterisk silently marking a textual crux—a minimal cipher bearing the weight of an entire history, a world of words collapsed into a single, potent point.

noun

A letter or other symbol that stands for a name or word; specifically, one used in a modern literary work to refer to an early version of a text.
A thing which represents something else; a sign, a symbol.“[H]e emerged onto a garden terrace where on the soft red sand one could make out the sigla of a summer day: the imprints of a dog's paws, the beaded tracks of a wagtail, the Dunlop stripe left by Tanya's bicycle, […]”