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What word means "the thing(s) you added to something"? It's something like 'addium' or something Latin-like! But I can't really remember.

I remember seeing it used in some context as follows.

  1. You write a comment.
  2. Then you want to add something to it, you'd write:

    Old comment.

    [the word goes here]

    New comment.

And it's not edit or P.S.

3 Answers 3

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Addendum, plural addenda.

Latin gerundive meaning "what is/was to be added", plural "things that are/were to be added".

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  • Yes, that's the word I was talking about! Thank you! May 17, 2013 at 2:27
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I believe you referring to the word addendum.

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Another word you could use is codicil.

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  • The only definition for codicil given in both Chambers (chambersharrap.co.uk) and ODO (oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/codicil?q=codicil (British) and oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/codicil (American)) is in relation to a supplement to a will.
    – TrevorD
    May 17, 2013 at 11:13
  • @TrevorD: You got me. Here I am, confronted by the big guns and all I have is a peashooter. Oh well, here goes anyway: dictionary.reference.com/browse/codicil?db=dictionary, where a codicil is defined in part as "any supplement; appendix." The same "authority" also defines an addendum as a thing to be added, an appendix, a supplement. I feel so ashamed! May 17, 2013 at 14:13
  • @rhetorician: I believe it doesn't have to be a supplement to a will, but it has to be a supplement to a legal document, so it has to be a little sub-document in itself: not a single item in a list, which can be an addendum. May 17, 2013 at 14:54
  • @Cerberus: Except when "codicil" is used in an almost metaphorical--but surely analogical--fashion, as in polymath Kenneth Burke's "Definition of Man," which ends with ". . . and rotten with perfection," which he refers to (probably with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek) as his "wry codicil." His definition, by the way, is a pretty good one. It's not perfect, but then what is? May 17, 2013 at 16:32
  • @rhetorician: And he calls those last words, and rotten with perfection, a "codicil"? That would indeed have to be metaphorical... May 17, 2013 at 16:58

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