Word.ws English Dictionary

italic

/ɪˈtælɪk//ɪˈtælɪk/

italic adjective: designed to resemble a handwriting style developed in Italy in the 16th century.

italic: designed to resemble a handwriting style developed in Italy in the 16th century
Image: Number3Pencils, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective (1)

italic (not comparable)

  1. Designed to resemble a handwriting style developed in Italy in the 16th century.
  2. Having letters that slant or lean to the right; oblique.
    • The text was impossible to read: every other word was underlined or in a bold or italic font.

Noun

italic (plural italics)

  1. A typeface in which the letters slant to the right.
    • Names of vessels, as the Kearsarge or the Alabama, are frequently put in italic.1902, Theodore Low DeVinne, The Practice of Typography: Correct Composition, page 104
    • […] ROBERT GRANJON, possibly in collaboration with CLAUDE GARAMOND, had created an italic which matched Garamond Roman.1983, Ida M. Kimber, The Art of Lettering, translation of original by Albert Kapr, page 329
  2. An oblique handwriting style, such as used by Italian calligraphers of the Renaissance.
    • Spenser uses two different scripts: an Elizabethan secretary hand for English texts, and an italic 'mixed' with secretary graphs for Latin texts […]1990, Albert Charles Hamilton, The Spenser Encyclopedia, →ISBN, page 345

Adjective (2) capitalized: Italic

Italic (not comparable)

  1. Of or relating to the Italian peninsula.
  2. (Indo-European-studies) Pertaining to a subfamily of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family, that includes Latin and other languages (as Oscan, Umbrian) spoken by the peoples of ancient Italy
    1. (Indo-European-studies, dated) Osco-Umbrian; an extinct branch of such language family, which excludes the Latino-Faliscan languages
      • The ancient Italic languages that are now extinct include Oscan, Umbrian, and South Picene.
  3. (historical) Pertaining to various peoples that lived in Italy before the establishment of the Roman Empire, or to any of several alphabet systems used by those peoples.
    • There were several Italic alphabets, one being the Etruscan alphabet.

Proper noun capitalized: Italic

Italic

  1. The Italic family taken as a whole.
    • The centum families include Celtic, Germanic, Greek, and Italic.

italic meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

italic in Tamil

வலப்பக்கம் சாய்ந்த

italic in Urdu

حروف کج, ترچھا طرز

italic in Bengali

বাঁকা ছাঁদে গঠিত

italic in Malayalam

ഇറ്റലിയെ സംബന്ധിച്ച, ചരിഞ്ഞ വടിവിലുള്ള അക്ഷരം
More languagesFewer languages
italic in Kannada
ಓರೆಯಕ್ಷರ, ಓರೆಯ
italic in Indonesian
kursif, miring, italik

Examples of italic in a sentence

  • There is no need to put the whole paragraph in italics.
  • In English, foreign words are typically written in italics until they are naturalized.
  • Italic fonts are sometimes described as oblique in typographic terminology.

All 21 example sentences with italic

Synonyms of italic

Antonyms

Forms of italic

Adjective
alternative formitalick
Noun
pluralitalics

Plural of italic: italics

Origin of italic

Named after the nation of Italy, as it was first used by an Italian printer, Aldo Manuzio, around 1500. Literally Italy + -ic.

Via Latin ītalicus from Ancient Greek Ἰταλικός (Italikós), from Ἰταλία (Italía, “Italy”).

Words formed from italic

Questions about italic

What does italic mean?
Italic means designed to resemble a handwriting style developed in Italy in the 16th century.
What is italic in Tamil?
Italic in Tamil is வலப்பக்கம் சாய்ந்த. See Italic meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is italic?
Italic can be an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce italic?
Italic is pronounced /ɪˈtælɪk/ (UK).

Words near italic in the dictionary

  1. Italianly
  2. Italianness
  3. Italiano
  4. Italianos
  5. Italians
  6. italic
  7. Italical
  8. italically
  9. italicisation
  10. italicisations
  11. italicise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: italic (page history and authors); Italic (page history and authors); italic (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); italic (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); italic (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); italic (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); italic (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-italic.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Knabrupt-italic.wav.

Cite this entry: “italic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/italic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.