Serif
adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A short line added to the end of a stroke in traditional typefaces, such as Times New Roman.
"It is generally believed, by those who study such things, that serif typefaces are easier to read when reading a lot of words. The hickeys (serifs) on each letter tend to push our eye toward the next letter."
- 2 a short line at the end of the main strokes of a character wordnet
- 1 Of a typeface, provided with serifs. not-comparable
"It is generally believed, by those who study such things, that serif typefaces are easier to read when reading a lot of words. The hickeys (serifs) on each letter tend to push our eye toward the next letter."
Synonyms
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More examples"In a sans-serif font, skewing a word or phrase can create the appearance of italics, even when a real italic font is not available. The technique is less successful with serif fonts because the design of the roman letter "a" or "g", for example, usually differs from its italic version."
Etymology
From earlier ceriph, ceref, of obscure derivation. There are two (not directly interrelated) candidates for a possible Dutch origin: 1.) the noun schreef (“stroke”, now also “serif” as a semantic loan), related with schrapen (“to scrape”); and 2.) the verb schrafferen (“to provide with horizontal lines, to shade”), from Italian sgraffiare. For the latter, compare German Schraffe (“serif”), although this again may be a semantic loan based on the English word rather than original to it. Alternatively, from Late Latin cerificus (“waxen”), from Latin cera (“wax”), after the ruled lines used in writing on wax tablets.
Related phrases
More for "serif"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.