movable type

American  

noun

Printing.

1. type from which text is printed directly in which each character is on a separate piece of metal.

---

Etymology

Origin of movable type

First recorded in 1760–70

Example Sentences

Curated by Smithsonian conservators and preservation experts, the exhibition focuses on the art of hand-press bookmaking spanning from the invention of movable type in the 1400s to the 19th century, when bookbinding was mechanized.

From Washington Post • Dec. 3, 2022

The show includes a fragment from the 1459 Mainz Psalter, the second-oldest dated piece of printing from movable type in the West.

From New York Times • Dec. 2, 2022

He regards Mr. Berners-Lee’s 1989 invention as an innovation as significant as Johannes Gutenberg’s development of movable type in the 15th century.

From New York Times • Jun. 30, 2021

That innovation, known as movable type, made it viable to print not just a single page of text, but to simply rearrange the letters to print subsequent pages.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2020

Of those advances—in paper, movable type, metallurgy, presses, inks, and scripts—paper and the idea of movable type reached Europe from China.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond