Glossary

Ascender: Line that goes above the x-height.

Baseline: The line upon which the letters rest.

Calligraphy: Literally means “beautiful writing.” From the Greek word calli (“beautiful”) and graphein (“to write”).

Crossbar: Horizontal stroke in a letter.

Descender: A line on the letterform that goes below the x-height.

Downstoke: The downward push of the pointed pen. This is the heavy stroke of the pointed pen, as the weighted lines are made on the downstrokes.

Ductus: The set of strokes that makes up a calligraphy letter.

Entrance Stroke: Hairline stroke that begins a letter. Used as a connective stroke.

Exemplar: A calligraphy alphabet.

Font: A type style.

Gouache: Opaque watercolor paint.

Hairline: The very thin strokes created with pointed pen, when no pressure is placed on the nib. Often on an upstroke.

Hand: A group of handwritten letters.

Ligature: Linking two or more letters with a stroke.

Majuscule: Large capital letter.

Minuscule: Small lowercase letter.

Serif: Decoration added to the end of a horizontal stroke. Adds legibility, horizontal alignment, and decoration.

Stem: The upright bar of a letter.

Stress: Where the weight is placed in Roman letters.

Upstroke: Upward line with the pointed pen. There is very little pressure on the pen on an upstroke. This create a thin, light hairline stroke.

X-height: The height of a minuscule “x” in a given hand. All other minuscule letters in a hand are based off this height.