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italic

adjective
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ital·​ic | \ ə-ˈta-lik How to pronounce italic (audio) , i-, ī- \

Definition of italic

 (Entry 1 of 2)

1a : of or relating to a type style with characters that slant upward to the right (as in "these words are italic") — compare roman
b : of or relating to a style of slanted cursive handwriting developed in the 15th and 16th centuries
2 capitalized : of or relating to ancient Italy, its peoples, or their Indo-European languages

italic

noun

Definition of italic (Entry 2 of 2)

1 : an italic character or type
2 capitalized : a branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Latin, Oscan, and Umbrian — see Indo-European Languages Table

Examples of italic in a Sentence

Noun These words are printed in italic. The type should be set in italics. These words are printed in italics.
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Recent Examples on the Web: Adjective The New York Times sent out a breaking news alert and threw a bold, italic headline across its front page announcing the potential change in policy. — Tina Nguyen, The Hive, "Donald Trump Dupes the Media with Another Immigration Head Fake," 1 Mar. 2017 In each case, the subtitle appears in bold or italic, followed by a short paragraph in plain text describing the scope and results of the project. — Amy Lindgren, Twin Cities, "Working Strategies: Making strategic use of optional résumé sections," 28 Jan. 2017 The italic angle conveys forward motion, innovation, and progress. — Derek Hawkins, chicagotribune.com, "PayPal says Pandora latched onto its brand with new, similar logo," 24 May 2017 The New York Times sent out a breaking news alert and threw a bold, italic headline across its front page announcing the potential change in policy. — Tina Nguyen, The Hive, "Donald Trump Dupes the Media with Another Immigration Head Fake," 1 Mar. 2017 Recent Examples on the Web: Noun Stats in bold indicate National League leader; stats in italics and bold indicate MLB leader. — Emma Baccellieri, SI.com, "The National League Award Races Are Ridiculously Close With Weeks to Go," 5 Sep. 2019 Bishop wrote, in uncharacteristic italics, after reading drafts of the poems. — Thomas Mallon, The New Yorker, "Marriage, Betrayal, and the Letters Behind “The Dolphin”," 9 Dec. 2019 Records that were disclosed included sales brochures from LSI, featuring liberal use of italics, bold letters, multiple fonts and type sizes, all caps and exclamation points. — Ken Armstrong, ProPublica, "Why Are Cops Around the World Using This Outlandish Mind-Reading Tool?," 8 Dec. 2019 Stats in bold indicate American League leader; stats in bold and italics indicate MLB leader. — Jon Tayler, SI.com, "Awards Watch: Will Justin Verlander's Teammate Snatch His Cy Young Award?," 4 Sep. 2019 Katy Waldman at Slate points out that Twitter and some other texting apps don’t allow for italics and boldface, which makes capitalization an increasingly important way to show enthusiasm. — Dan Kopf, Quartzy, "The rise of all-lowercase and all-uppercase song titles," 21 Aug. 2019 Back in the heyday of personal letter-writing, all caps were just one part of a broader emotional ecosystem for expressing strong feeling, along with italics, underlining, larger letters, red ink, and other decorative formatting options. — Gretchen Mcculloch, WIRED, "The Meaning of All Caps—in Texting and in Life," 23 July 2019 Our background information and analysis is in italics. — Sarah Chaney, WSJ, "Nineteen Central Bankers Walk Into a Bar…," 11 Jan. 2019 Each recipient receives a shawl with a letter - its words are in italics in this column. — Joanne Berger Dumound/special To Cleveland.com., cleveland.com, "Prayer shawls bring warmth, comfort and blessings: Olmsted Dates and Data," 22 Jan. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'italic.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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First Known Use of italic

Adjective

1598, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Noun

1676, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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Time Traveler for italic

Time Traveler

The first known use of italic was in 1598

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Statistics for italic

Cite this Entry

“Italic.” The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/italic. Accessed 28 January 2020.

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More Definitions for italic

italic

adjective
How to pronounce italic (audio)

English Language Learners Definition of italic

 (Entry 1 of 2)

: having letters, numbers, etc., that slant upward to the right
: of or relating to ancient Italy, the people who lived there, or the languages spoken there

italic

noun

English Language Learners Definition of italic (Entry 2 of 2)

: letters, numbers, etc., that slant upward to the right : italic type

See the full definition for italic in the English Language Learners Dictionary

italic

adjective
ital·​ic | \ i-ˈta-lik How to pronounce italic (audio) \

Kids Definition of italic

 (Entry 1 of 2)

: of or relating to a type style with letters that slant to the right (as in “italic letters”)

italic

noun

Kids Definition of italic (Entry 2 of 2)

: a type style with letters that slant to the right : an italic letter or italic type

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More from Merriam-Webster on italic

Rhyming Dictionary: Words that rhyme with italic

Spanish Central: Translation of italic

Nglish: Translation of italic for Spanish Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about italic

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