In Latin scribere means "to write" and scriptum refers to "a piece of writing, a law, a line or mark.” Undoubtedly, you can rattle off a long list of English words that contain scribe or script:
describe, transcribe, subscribe, prescribe, proscribe, inscribe, ascribe, circumscribe, manuscript, prescription, description, transcription, proscription, and more.
Once you familiarize yourself with Latin prefixes, you can easily understand the meanings of words containing the root scribe. Of course, scribe has a meaning without any prefix: a scribe is someone who writes. In early societies, especially before the advent of the printing press, scribes constituted a specialized profession, creating or copying documents. Script also has a meaning on its own. Today, we often think of a script as the printed version of a play or screenplay used in the theater or in filmmaking. But script can also refer to any handwritten characters.
Now let’s connect scribe, script, and scription with some prefixes:
“A”+ scribe=ascribe
“A,” here, is a shortened version of the Latin “ad,” meaning “toward, to.” To ascribe something to someone is to claim something about them. Although scribe means “write,” this doesn’t have to be in writing. If you ascribe an unsigned manuscript to a particular author, you are claiming that that author wrote the manuscript. If you ascribe a particular talent to your friend, you are crediting your friend with having that talent.
“Circum”+ scribe=circumscribe
“Circum” means “around” and you could think of circumscribing as drawing a line or circle around something, marking it off. Circumscribe means “to limit.” You can circumscribe something physical, as when you give hikers permission to hike only within a circumscribed region of a national forest. You can also circumscribe something nonphysical. For example, we may recognize that our ability to influence another person is circumscribed (often to our great frustration).
De + scribe = describe
In this instance, “de” means “down” (sometimes “de” means “off, from.”) You can describe something without writing down your description—to describe is simply to represent in words.
In+ scribe=inscribe
Sometimes the prefix “in” indicates negation: “inattentive” means “not attentive.” Here it actually means “in” and when “in” precedes scribe, it creates a word that means to write in or on. Inscriptions are often engraved—on jewelry or on stone slabs. But you can inscribe something with a pen, as when someone inscribes an autograph in a book.
Sub+ scribe = subscribe
“Sub”means below. To subscribe is literally to write under or sign below on a document, but we use it to mean “sign up” for something. You subscribe to a newspaper or a podcast. But you can also subscribe to an idea or a theory by deciding that you find it believable.
Trans + scribe = transcribe
“Trans” means across, over, through. To transcribe means “to copy out in writing” and a transcript is a written record. In a courtroom, the transcriber records the verbal testimony of witnesses and then provides a transcript that the jury can consult later to refresh their memories of what witnesses said.
Pre+ scribe= prescribe
“Pre” means “in advance.” We often use prescribe to refer to what a doctor does, directing a pharmacist to give a patient a particular medication. But to prescribe more broadly means “to order in advance.” To prescribe is to write down, or simply decree, an order or directive.
Pro+ scribe= proscribe
“Pro” sounds a lot like “pre” and means “ahead, forward.” And both pro and pre connect up with scribe. Yet proscribe, oddly enough, means the opposite of prescribe. This has to do with the way the words were used in early European legal history. Essentially, proscribe means to write down something in advance in order to outlaw it. So proscribe means “to forbid.”
Nouns that end is script or scription also relate to the idea of writing or what is written. In Latin, manus means “hand,” so manuscript most literally refers to a document written by hand, as all documents once were. Today documents can be printed electronically and a manuscript can be a printed document, but the latent idea of the hand remains present in manuscript.
You can review the prefixes discussed above and you will then know the meanings of prescription, proscription, transcription, ascription.
Author: Carol J. Cook
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