cursive

American  

[kur-siv] / ˈkɜr sɪv /

adjective

1. (of handwriting) in flowing strokes with the letters joined together.

2. Printing. in flowing strokes resembling handwriting.

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noun

• cursives
  plural

1. a cursive letter or character.

2. Printing. a style of typeface simulating handwriting.

cursive British  

/ ˈkɜːsɪv /

adjective

1. of or relating to handwriting in which letters are formed and joined in a rapid flowing style

2. printing of or relating to typefaces that resemble handwriting

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noun

1. a cursive letter or printing type

2. a manuscript written in cursive letters

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• cursiveness
  noun
• noncursive
  adjective
• transcursive
  adjective
• cursively
  adverb
• noncursively
  adverb
• transcursively
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• cursives
  plural

Etymology

Origin of cursive

1775–85; < Medieval Latin cursīvus flowing (said of penmanship), equivalent to Latin curs ( us ) (past participle of currere to run) + -īvus -ive

Explanation

Cursive is a style of writing in which all the letters in a word are connected. It's also known as script or longhand. When the third-grade students learned cursive writing, they were excited to find that they could write entire words without lifting their pencil from the paper. Cursive comes from the past participle of the Latin word currere, which means "to run." In cursive handwriting, the letters all run into one another and the hand runs across the page, never lifting between letters. Every time a document asks for your signature at the bottom of a document, you are meant to use this flowing cursive writing style.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cursive cursives

Her conviction showed in the careful way she packed away every piece, writing my name in her distinctive cursive script across the top of each box.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026

The new typeface really does fit the moment, a time when anything in full cursive is kind of washed and outdated, and soon, no one will be able to read it anyway.

From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2026

I’ve seen it on many products, in many different presentations — pink-glitter bubble letters on a sticker, loopy black cursive on a tote bag, industrial embroidery on a hat.

From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2026

Her legal team argued that the way Cathay Home has styled the word "Swift" in its branding closely resembled the singer's trademarked cursive signature.

From BBC ● Feb. 12, 2026

Both girls had their names stitched in cursive on their uniforms, but with my dyslexia, the words looked like meaningless spaghetti.

From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan

While Loi Che Chan does employ Chinese, she revives extravagantly illegible cursives as old as the eighth century.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 11, 2019

They worked obsessively, perfecting their lettering, their cursives, and their lines.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 10, 2015

Those familiar words, vouched for by 16 uncials and all the cursives, are quite above suspicion.

From The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels by John William Burgon

So that in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries both uncials and cursives must have issued mainly and virtually from the same body of transcribers.

From The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels by John William Burgon

The truth rests with the fourteen remaining uncials and with the cursives.

From The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels Being the Sequel to The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels by Edward Miller

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