black letter
See also: blackletter and black-letter
English
The Gutenberg Bible, and all of Johannes Gutenberg's works, were printed in blackletter type.
Fraktur type. Detail from the dedication page of Goethe's Faust, a 1920 edition.
Alternative forms
- blackletter, black-letter
Noun
black letter (countable and uncountable, plural black letters)
- (calligraphy) A highly calligraphic Western European script style used from approximately 1150.
- (typography) A Northern European style of type, with contrasting thick-and-thin, angular strokes forming upright letterforms, and usually set with a dark typographic colour on the page.
- 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, OCLC 1167497017:
- Also we discovered what is still more curious, an English version of the black-letter Latin.
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- Text set in black-letter type.
- (law) The basic standard elements for a particular field of law, which are generally known and free from doubt or dispute.
Quotations
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:black letter.
Synonyms
- (typeface): gothic
Hyponyms
- (typeface): bastarda, fraktur, Old English, quadrata, rotunda, Schwabacher, textura
Coordinate terms
- (typeface): antiqua, whiteletter
Derived terms
- black-letter law
Translations
a Northern-European style of type
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text set in black-letter type
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