lettering

/ˈlɛ.tə.ɹɪŋ/

lettering is the present participle and gerund of letter.

Noun

lettering (countable and uncountable, plural letterings)

Written text, especially when printed.
- The lettering on the sign made it clear that intruders were unwelcome.
- On a recent afternoon a work crew and crane were affixing the tall lettering to the side of the team’s new stadium, just off the autobahn in Sinsheim, a few miles from Hoffenheim.2009 January 22, Nicholas Kulish, “Soccer Titan Raises Profile of Tiny Village”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022
Designed text.
- The lettering on the sign was very tidy.
The inking of text onto comic pages during production.

letter (third-person singular simple present letters, present participle lettering, simple past and past participle lettered)

(transitive) To print, inscribe, or paint letters on something.
(US, intransitive, scholastic) To earn a varsity letter (award).
- I think Mom lettered in shot put her junior year.1992 September 23, Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes

plural	letterings

What does lettering mean?: Lettering means written text, especially when printed.
What is lettering the present participle and gerund of?: Lettering is the present participle and gerund of letter.
What part of speech is lettering?: Lettering is a noun.
How do you pronounce lettering?: Lettering is pronounced /ˈlɛ.tə.ɹɪŋ/.
What is the plural of lettering?: The plural of lettering is letterings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: lettering (page history and authors); letter (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-lettering.ogg.

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