page

pronunciation

How to pronounce page in British English: UK [peɪdʒ] word uk audio image

How to pronounce page in American English: US [peɪdʒ] word us audio image

Noun:

one side of one leaf (of a book or magasine or newspaper or letter etc.) or the written or pictorial matter it contains
a boy who is employed to run errands
a youthful attendant at official functions or ceremonies such as legislative functions and weddings
in medieval times a youth acting as a knight's attendant as the first stage in training for knighthood
Verb:

call out somebody's name over a P.A. system
work as a page
number the pages of a book or manuscript

Word Origin

page: page: English has two nouns page. The one that now denotes ‘boy servant’ originally meant simply ‘boy’ [13]. It was borrowed from Old French page, itself an adaptation of Italian paggio. This is generally assumed to have come from Greek paidíon, a diminutive form of pais ‘boy, child’ (source of English encyclopedia, paediatric [19], paedophilia [20], pedagogue [14], pederast [18], etc). Page of a book [15] depends ultimately on the notion of ‘fastening’.It comes via Old French page from Latin pāgina, a derivative of the base *pāg- ‘fix’ (source also of English pagan, pale ‘stake’, etc). This was used for ‘vine-stakes fastened together into a trellis’, which perhaps inspired its metaphorical application to a ‘column of writing’ in a scroll. When books replaced scrolls, pāgina was transferred to ‘page’.=> encyclopedia, paediatric, pedagogue; pagan, pale, pole

page (n.1): "sheet of paper," 1580s, from Middle French page, from Old French pagene "page, text" (12c.), from Latin pagina "page, leaf of paper, strip of papyrus fastened to others," related to pagella "small page," from pangere "to fasten," from PIE root *pag- "to fix" (see pact). Earlier pagne (12c.), directly from Old French. Usually said to be from the notion of individual sheets of paper "fastened" into a book. Ayto and Watkins offer an alternative theory: vines fastened by stakes and formed into a trellis, which led to sense of "columns of writing on a scroll." When books replaced scrolls, the word continued to be used. Related: Paginal. Page-turner "book that one can't put down" is from 1974.

page (n.2): "youth, lad, boy of the lower orders," c. 1300, originally also "youth preparing to be a knight," from Old French page "a youth, page, servant" (13c.), possibly via Italian paggio (Barnhart), from Medieval Latin pagius "servant," perhaps ultimately from Greek paidion "boy, lad," diminutive of pais (genitive paidos) "child." But OED considers this unlikely and points instead to Littré's suggestion of a source in Latin pagus "countryside," in sense of "boy from the rural regions" (see pagan). Meaning "youth employed as a personal attendant to a person of rank" is first recorded mid-15c.; this was transferred from late 18c. to boys who did personal errands in hotels, clubs, etc., also in U.S. legislatures.

page (v.1): "to summon or call by name," 1904, from page (n.2), on the notion of "to send a page after" someone. Related: Paged; paging.

page (v.2): "to turn pages," 1620s, from page (n.1). Related: Paged; paging.