Verbatim
/vɜːrˈbeɪtɪm/noun
In exactly the same words as were used originally.
Did you know?The phrase comes from medieval Latin legal and scholarly writing, where copying words exactly mattered because the precise wording itself was treated as authoritative power.
Etymological Timeline
Latin
Latin
verbum
“word; speech; expression”
Medieval Latin
Latin
verbatim
“word for word; in the exact words”
14th-16th Century
English
verbatim
“in the same words; exactly as spoken or written”
Modern English
English
verbatim
“using exactly the same words as the original”