glossography

Glossography is the practice of writing or compiling glosses. A gloss is a brief explanation of a difficult or obscure word or expression, often found in the margin or between the lines of a text. Essentially, glossography is the creation of these explanatory notes.12

A related term is a glossary, which is a list providing definitions for specialized words, often found at the end of a book. The compilation of dictionaries, a more extensive form of word listing and definition, is known as lexicography. The historical roots of glossography can be traced back to ancient practices of annotating texts to clarify meaning.3456