Approbations, commendations, for printed books, indicate approval or praise for the subject work. Their usage for Hebrew books differ from other printed works in that approbations have two additional and quite different applications. In addition to conveying positive approval of a book's contents, they are also used to confirm that a book does not contain forbidden or prohibited matter, or that it protects the publisher from competitive editions for a fixed period of time.

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Approbations are customarily defined as “n. approval; praise,” derived from the medieval Englis…