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Letters the editor supplies to spell out an abbreviation the writer used.
Also known as: Expansion brackets, Round brackets in an inscription
Ancient documents abbreviate heavily and consistently. Round brackets show where the editor has written out in full what the object gives in short — the object is neither damaged nor mistaken, merely terse.
Round brackets enclosing letters supplied by the editor to expand an abbreviation that the ancient writer used, where the object itself is complete and legible.
Contexts: History
Common in Roman inscriptions, where standard formulae are abbreviated so consistently that the expansion is rarely in doubt, and in documentary papyri, where abbreviation is habitual.
The third of the three supply brackets, and the least contentious: square brackets restore what is destroyed, angle brackets correct what is wrong, and round brackets expand what is merely short.
Two curved brackets, each a single arc bowing outward, enclosing a span of text.