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black letter

American  

noun

Printing.

  1. a heavy-faced type in a style like that of early European hand lettering and the earliest printed books.

black letter British  

noun

  1. printing another name for Gothic

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of black letter

First recorded in 1630–40

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Incunables! for you I sigh, Black letter, at thy founts I kneel, Old tales of Perrault's nursery, For you I'd go without a meal!

From Books and Bookmen by Lang, Andrew

Under William the Conqueror, this alphabet was superseded by the modern Gothic, Old English, or Black letter; which, in its turn, happily gave place to the present Roman.

From The Grammar of English Grammars by Brown, Goold

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.