Nota bene

Nota bene (/ˌnoʊtə ˈbɛneɪ, ˈbɛni, ˈbiːni/ NOH-tə BEN-ay, BEN-ee, BEE-nee;¹² plural: notate bene) is the Latin phrase meaning note well.² In manuscripts, nota bene is abbreviated in upper-case as NB and N.B., and in lower-case as n.b. and nb; the editorial usages of nota bene and notate bene first appeared in English around the year 1711.³⁴⁵ In Modern English, since the 14th century, the editorial usage of NB is common in legal writing to direct the reader's attention to a thematically relevant aspect of the subject that qualifies the matter being litigated.⁶

In medieval manuscripts, the editorial marks used to draw the reader's attention to a supporting text also are called nota bene marks; however, the catalogue of medieval editorial marks does not include the NB abbreviation. The medieval equivalents to the n.b.-mark are anagrams derived from the four letters of the Latin word nota, thus the abbreviation DM for dignum memoria ("worth remembering") and the typographic index symbol of the manicule (☞), the little hand that indicates the start of the relevant supporting text.⁷