pointed instrument for writing and marking. The stylus was used in ancient times as a tool for writing on parchment or papyrus. The early Greeks incised letters on wax-covered boxwood tablets using a stylus made of a pointed shaft of metal, bone, or ivory. In the Middle Ages, schoolboys in Europe used similar instruments to write on wooden tablets coated with black or green wax, producing whitish marks that could be erased by rubbing with the rounded end. In modern times, a stylus is used for cutting stencils in duplicating or other reproduction processes and, in the phonograph industry, to cut the original grooves in phonograph records; the needle used to play phonograph records is also called a stylus.