calligraphy
[kuh-lig-ruh-fee]
noun
fancy penmanship, especially highly decorative handwriting, as with a great many flourishes: She appreciated the calligraphy of the 18th century.
handwriting; penmanship.
the art of writing beautifully: He studied calligraphy when he was a young man.
a script, usually cursive, although sometimes angular, produced chiefly by brush, especially Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic writing of high aesthetic value.
Fine Arts. line or a group of lines either derived from or resembling letter forms and characterized by qualities usually associated with cursive writing, especially that produced with a brush or pen.
RELATED CONTENT
RELATED WORDS
writing, print, handwriting, script, manuscript, scrawl, longhand, chirography, fist, hand, penmanship, letters, characters, scribble, autograph, cuneiform, shorthand, hieroglyphics, style, mark
Nearby words
- calles, plutarco elías,
- calli-,
- callicrates,
- calligraph,
- calligrapher,
- callimachus,
- calling,
- calling card,
- calliope,
- calliopean
Origin of calligraphy
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for calligraphy
calligraphy
noun
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
calligraphy
1610s, from Greek kaligraphia, from kallos "beauty" + graphein "to write" (see -graphy). Related: Calligraphic. The usual comb. form in Greek was kalli- "beautiful, fine, happy, favorable;" kalo- was a later, rarer alternative form.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper