A baptismal font.
- An example of a font is the basin that holds holy water.
- An example of a font is the place where knowledge comes from; the font of all knowledge.
- An example of a font is Adobe Garamond.
- a large basin, now typically supported by a pedestal, for holding water to be used in baptizing
- an open container, as at a church entrance, for holding holy water
- Archaic a fountain or spring
- a source or origin
Origin of fontMiddle English ; from Old English ; from Classical Latin fons (gen. fontis), spring, fountain
Origin of fontFrench fonte ; from fondre, to cast, found
- A basin for holding baptismal water in a church.
- A receptacle for holy water; a stoup.
- The oil reservoir in an oil-burning lamp.
- An abundant source; a fount: She was a font of wisdom and good sense.
Origin of fontMiddle English, from Old English, from Late Latin f&omacron;ns, font-, from Latin, fountain.
Origin of fontFrench fonte, casting, from Old French (from Vulgar Latin *fundita, from Late Latin, feminine of *funditus, past participle of Latin fundere, to pour forth; see fondant) or from Old French fondre, to melt (from Latin fundere).
From Old English font, from Latin fons (“fountain”).
- (typography) A set of glyphs of unified design, belonging to one typeface (e.g., Helvetica), style (e.g., italic), and weight (e.g., bold). Usually representing the letters of an alphabet and its supplementary characters.
- In metal typesetting, a set of type sorts in one size.
- In phototypesetting, a set of patterns forming glyphs of any size, or the film they are stored on.
- In digital typesetting, a set of glyphs in a single style, representing one or more alphabets or writing systems, or the computer code representing it.
- (computing) A computer file containing the code used to draw and compose the glyphs of one or more typographic fonts on a computer display or printer. A font file.
From Middle French fonte, feminine past participle of verb fondre (“to melt”).
Apparently from fount, with influence from the senses above (under etymology 1).
font - Computer Definition
A set of type characters of a particular typeface design and size. Each typeface, such as Times Roman, Helvetica and Arial, is typically made available in four variations: normal weight, bold, italic and bold italic. Thus, for bitmapped fonts, which are fully generated ahead of time, four fonts would be required for each point size of the typeface. For scalable fonts, which are generated in any point size on the fly, only four fonts would be required for each typeface. Font Storage Fonts mostly reside in the computer's hard disk as "soft fonts." However, with PostScript fonts, a basic set is built into the printer along with the PostScript rasterizing engine. In the early days, plug-in cartridges were common (see font cartridge). See typeface, bitmapped font, scalable font, TrueType and PostScript fonts.