The academic summary syllabus is first used as an English word in 1653, borrowed from Late Latin syllabus, meaning “list”. Syllabus comes from a misprint in a 1470s copy of a Cicero work, duplicated faithfully for centuries. The Latin word was originally sittybas, a borrowing from Ancient Greek σιττύβας (sittúbas), meaning “parchment label”. Σιττύβας were leather slips placed on the ends of scrolls in Greek libraries with a table of contents so that scribes could more quickly find the right scrolls.