aantekening

Aantekening is a Dutch term meaning a note or annotation added to a document or record. It serves as a remark, clarification, reference, or indication of a change in status. The etymology traces to aan- (on, at) and tekening (drawing, marking), literally a mark added to a document.

In practice, aantekeningen appear across many domains. In legal and administrative settings, an aantekening can be an official marginal note appended to a file or register, indicating decisions, conditions, or follow-up actions. In academic and research contexts, it refers to concise remarks or clarifications inserted by a reviewer or author. In archival work, aantekeningen help document provenance, corrections, or later determinations about a document’s status or meaning.

A related distinction is with notitie; notitie is a general term for a brief note or memorandum, while aantekening often connotes an annotation attached to a document or record, sometimes with formal or administrative implications. The term is also related to opmerking (remark) and annotatie (annotation), the latter more common in contemporary or digital contexts.

In digital environments, aantekening may be stored as metadata or as an in-text annotation linked to passages, or as comments in collaborative documents, or as marked changes during a review.