Imprimatur

By Deane Barker • •

Definition: official approval

This is Latin for “let it be printed.” After the printing press was created, it came to be printed on the inside cover of a book to show who had given approval for the book to be distributed.

I found lots of pronunciations, mostly differing on the third syllabus:

Why I Looked It Up

In Chip War:

The firm’s technology was seen as second-rate and without Beijing’s imprimatur it was unlikely to reverse its post-Snowden market shrinkage.

Postscript

Added on

In an article about JPMorgan:

A large commercial customer of the bank told me it “gave” its banking and hedging business to JPMorgan because it believed that the bank’s imprimatur would give the borrower credibility in the market.

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