Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use italic in a sentence

21 example sentences · adjective, noun

Italic means designed to resemble a handwriting style developed in Italy in the 16th century. Example: “The text was impossible to read: every other word was underlined or in a bold or italic font.”

Examples of italic by meaning

adjectiveHaving 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.

nounA 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

More sentences with italic

  • There is no need to put the whole paragraph in italics.From the entry italics
  • In English, foreign words are typically written in italics until they are naturalized.From the entry naturalize
  • Italic fonts are sometimes described as oblique in typographic terminology.From the entry oblique
  • Bold and italic tags are inline elements.From the entry inline
  • I will always put word-forms (and all the phrases and clauses I mention as examples) in italics.2024, Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Truth About English Grammar, Polity Press, →ISBN, page 17. From the entry lexeme
  • I did not put the Nłeʔkepmxcín in italics because it's not a foreign language.2023 February 18, “G.A. Grisenthwaite's novel Home Waltz is a coming-of-age story about friendship, identity and acceptance”, in CBC Radio. From the entry Nłeʔkepmxcín
  • In some early printed Bibles quoted text is indicated by changing the font from roman to italic.2021, Claire Cock-Starkey, Hyphens & Hashtags, Bodleian Library, page 48. From the entry roman
  • The deer family grouping is Cervidae, spelled without italics and pronounced SERV-ee-dah.2013, Leonard Lee Rue, Whitetail Savvy, →ISBN. From the entry family grouping
  • An alternative style forsakes italics altogether and assigns a dialogue tag: This is going nowhere, he thought.2011, Deborah Halverson, Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons. From the entry dialogue tag
  • Rachel was sitting at the table writing place cards with her italic fountain pen.2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 5, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN. From the entry place card
  • Moreover, most roman fonts offer italic counterparts, and italics offer another degree of interest.1993, Mac, Word & Excel Desktop Companion, page 93. From the entry roman font
  • The companion italic, the Tiemann kursiv is an even more handsome letter.1923, Stanley Morison, Holbrook Jackson, A Brief Survey of Printing: History and Practice, page 36. From the entry antiqua
  • (Technically Aptos and Calibri are typefaces, while a “font” refers to a particular face or size, like italics or boldface.2024 February 28, Victor Mather, “Microsoft Word’s Subtle Typeface Change Affected Millions. Did You Notice?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry typeface
  • It ignores issues such as the font, the size, the alignment of the character, whether it is boldface or italic, etc.2021, Zhiwei Xu, Jialin Zhang, Computational Thinking: A Perspective on Computer Science, Springer Nature Singapore, →ISBN, page 192. From the entry boldface
  • The OED defines the latter as ‘the interchange of position between sounds or letters in a word’ (my italics).1986 October 23, Adrian Room, “Letters”, in London Review of Books. From the entry metaphasis
  • Syllabisation shown by use of hyphens; accented syllables in italics.1951, Edward Hugh Tinley, A Guide to the Nomenclature Used in Organic Chemistry, page 15. From the entry syllabisation
  • For emphasis, bold type or italics always are preferable, because a caps-locked section of text is seen as both visually ugly and rude.2014, Gregory J. Touhill, C. Joseph Touhill, “Appendix B: General Rules for Email Etiquette: Sample Training Handout”, in Cybersecurity…. From the entry caps-locked
  • It will automatically reduce the size of the subscripts identified by “sub” and will choose italic or roman fonts for the remaining characters as appropriate.1988, Peter P. Silvester, The UNIXᵀᴹ System Guidebook, page 201. From the entry roman font
  • It may be compared to the two sorts of italic lower-case h in the Caslon Old Face types; but neither should be used indiscriminately.1906 July, The Gentleman’s Magazine, volume 301, page 94. From the entry seriph

Meaning of italic

  1. adjective Designed to resemble a handwriting style developed in Italy in the 16th century.
  2. adjective Having letters that slant or lean to the right; oblique.
  3. noun A typeface in which the letters slant to the right.

Full definition of italic

Questions about italic in a sentence

How do you use italic in a sentence?
Italic is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The text was impossible to read: every other word was underlined or in a bold or italic font.”
What is a short sentence with italic?
“Bold and italic tags are inline elements.”
What does italic mean?
Italic means designed to resemble a handwriting style developed in Italy in the 16th century.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: italic (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use italic in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/italic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.