great primer


nounPrinting.
  1. an 18-point type of a size larger than Columbian, formerly used for Bibles.

Origin of great primer

1
First recorded in 1675–85

Words Nearby great primer

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use great primer in a sentence

  • Erickson shot the words at him staccato-fashion, as if they were things known from great primer days.

    The Day Time Stopped Moving | Bradner Buckner
  • I saw all this as plainly as if it had all been printed in great-primer type, instead of working itself out in her features.

    The Poet at the Breakfast Table | Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
  • By 1544 a fount of great primer had been completed and a book printed in it, the Praeparatio Euangelica of Eusebius.

    Fine Books | Alfred W. Pollard
  • It was not until 1757 that he published his first work, a Virgil in royal quarto, with great-primer letters.

    This Simian World | Clarence Day
  • His great primer, for which he has been especially noted by some bibliographers, was very probably that used by Richard Faques.

British Dictionary definitions for great primer

great primer

noun
  1. (formerly) a size of printer's type approximately equal to 18 point

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