Colophon

A colophon – the word is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, IPA: /'kɒ lə ,fɒn or 'kɒ lə ,fən/ - is

either

a publisher’s emblem on a printed book (e.g., the penguin in an oval frame on the publications of Penguin Books);

or

information in a book about its printer and the date and place of its publication. Nowadays this information is usually given at the beginning of a book, on the reverse side of the title page; but in earlier times it came at the end, a practice which reflected the custom before the invention of the printing press, when books were copied by hand and a copyist might add his name and the circumstances in which the copy had been made at the end of a manuscript. This earlier practice explains the etymology of the word, which comes, through Late Latin, from the Greek κολοφών (kolophōn), ‘summit’, ‘finish’, or ‘finishing touch’.