Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- Printing. German black-letter text, a style of type.
- (usually lowercase) Also fractur.
- a stylized, highly decorative watercolor or watercolor-and-ink painting in the Pennsylvania-German tradition, often bearing elaborate calligraphy and standardized motifs, as birds, tulips, mermaids, and unicorns, and typically appearing on a book page, baptismal certificate or other family record, or merchant’s advertisement.
- the elaborate calligraphy used in frakturs.
noun
- a style of typeface, formerly used in German typesetting for many printed works
German black-lettering, 1886, from German Fraktur, from Latin fractura (see fracture (n.)); so called from its angular, “broken” letters. The style was commonly used in German printing from c.1540. Sense often transferred to Pennsylvania German arts that incorporate the lettering.