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In orthography, a is a word containing an additional letter, usually one which is superfluous – not normally written in that word – nor needed for the proper comprehension of the word. Today, the term applies mostly to sacred scripture.
Examples of plene scripta appear frequently in classical Hebrew texts, and copyists are obliged to copy them unchanged, to ensure that biblical or other sacred texts are written with universal conformity. The expression plene scriptum (), sometimes simply described in Hebrew as ( malé, 'full'), is often used in contrast with defective scriptum (), the latter implying a word in which a letter that is normally present has been omitted. Together, plene and defective scripta are sometimes described using the Hebrew phrase .
The Roman era use of the phrase plene scriptum seems to mean written without using abbreviations.
The Babylonian Talmud discusses why the Hebrew Bible in writes for the plural word 'booths' the Hebrew word (in defective scriptum), but in the verse that immediately follows makes use of the plural word in its usual form, סֻּכּוֹת.Babylonian Talmud ( Sukkah 6b) A biblical word's plene or defective characteristic has often been used in rabbinic hermeneutics to decide Halachic norms. The Talmud and the rabbis explain the variations in plene and defective scriptum found in the Torah as being merely a Halacha le-Moshe mi-Sinai (a Law given to Moses at Sinai)., (reprinted in Israel, n.d.)
In some Semitic languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic), paleographers often describe the addition of a consonantal letter, such as vav and Yodh (used in place of the vowels 'o', 'u', 'i', and 'ei'), as employing matres lectionis in its reading, although not all letters used in Hebrew words are indeed a .
In the Tikkun Soferim (the model text for copying Torah scrolls by scribes), the word plene is always used in relation to other words written in defective scriptum, not because there is necessarily anything unusual or abnormal about the word being written in such a way, but to ensure a universal layout (conformity) in scribal practices,
where one word in a text must be written as though it were lacking in matres lectionis, and another word in a different text (sometimes even the same word) appearing as though it was not.
Among Israel's diverse ethnic groups, variant readings have developed over certain words in the Torah, the Sephardic tradition calls for the word ( wyhyw) in the verse () to be written in defective scriptum (i.e. ), but the Yemenite Jews requiring it to be written in plene scriptum (i.e. ). The word mineso in () is written in Sephardic Torah scrolls in plene scriptum, with an additional 'waw', but in Yemenite Torah scrolls, the same word mineso is written in defective scriptum, without a 'waw' (i.e. ).
The word plene has also come to denote the horizontal bar or line written above the six double-sounding consonants in ancient Hebrew codices, whenever their assigned reading is to be read without a dagesh, or as a non-accentuated Hebrew character. These letters are the bet (), gimel (), dalet (), kaph (), pe (), and tau (). When the Dagesh appears in the middle of these Hebrew characters, there is no plene bar written above them.
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