font

Noun

font (plural fonts)

2. (Christianity) A receptacle in a church for holy water, especially one used in baptism.

   Synonym: stoup

   Hyponym: baptismal font

   She dipped her fingers in the font and crossed herself.

   • 1791, Christopher Smart, “Moderation”, in Hymns for the Amusement of Children:

     Blessed be God, that, at the font, /⁠ My sponsors bound me to the call / Of Christ in England to confront / The world, the flesh, the fiend and all.

   • 1913, John Bertram Peterson, “Baptismal Font”, in Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2:

     In the Apostolic Age, as in Jewish times (John, iii, 23), baptism was administered without special fonts, at the seaside or in streams or pools of water (Acts, viii, 38); […]

4. A receptacle for lamp oil in a lamp.

Alternative forms

• fount (UK)

Noun

font (plural fonts)

2. (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.
   1. In metal typesetting, a set of type sorts in one size.
   2. In phototypesetting, a set of patterns forming glyphs of any size, or the film they are stored on.
   3. 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.
4. (computing, typography, informal) A typeface.
6. (computing, typography, metonymically) 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.

   They bought a license for the Gulliver font and installed that font on several machines.

Verb

font (third-person singular simple present fonts, present participle fonting, simple past and past participle fonted)

1. (television, colloquial, transitive) To overlay (text) on the picture.
   • 1981, William Safire, On language, page 78:

     When figures or quotes are thought helpful to understanding a spot, they're "fonted" over the cover picture.

   • 1987, The Foundation Center, Promoting issues & ideas: a guide to public relations for nonprofit organizations, page 97:

     […] character generator instead of an easel card to create letters on camera or telephone numbers that can run across the TV screen. The process is called fonting.

References

• “font” in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Bringhurst, Robert (2002). The Elements of Typographic Style, version 2.5, pp 291–2. Vancouver, Hartley & Marks. →ISBN.

Noun

font (plural fonts)

1. (figuratively) A source, wellspring, fount.
   • 1824 — George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan, canto V

     A gaudy taste; for they are little skill'd in
     The arts of which these lands were once the font

   • 1910, Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, part II:

     As I am not drawing here on the font of imagination to refresh that of fact and experience, I do not suggest that the Tarot set the example of expressing Secret Doctrine in pictures and that it was followed by Hermetic writers; but it is noticeable that it is perhaps the earliest example of this art.

   • 1915, Woodrow Wilson, Third State of the Union Address:

     I am interested to fix your attention on this prospect now because unless you take it within your view and permit the full significance of it to command your thought I cannot find the right light in which to set forth the particular matter that lies at the very font of my whole thought as I address you to-day.

   • 1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress:

     The Bible lays special stress on the fear of God as the font of wisdom.

Synonyms

(fountain): fontana

Derived terms

• codi font
• codi font obert

Related terms

• fontaner
• fontaneria
• fontinyol

Related terms

• profont