Printing

How to spell printing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce printing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does printing mean?

1. nounThe process of producing text or images on paper or another surface using a press or machine.
2. nounWriting in separate, unjoined letters rather than in cursive script.
3. nounA particular batch of copies of a book produced at one time.

Printing in a sentence

• The cost of printing the brochures came in under budget.

• Her neat printing was much easier to read than the doctor's scrawl.

• The novel sold out, so the publisher ordered a second printing.

• Colour printing uses far more ink than black and white.

• The form asked applicants to use printing rather than cursive.

• A typo was corrected in the third printing of the textbook.

Where does printing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb premere, meaning 'to press', and its past participle pressus, the same root that gives us 'press', 'pressure' and 'compress'. From the participle came the Old French noun preinte, meaning an impression or mark left by pressing something down, which English borrowed in the 1300s as 'print'. Originally a print was simply any mark stamped or pressed into a surface, such as a footprint in mud or a seal pressed into wax. When the mechanical press for reproducing text arrived in Europe in the fifteenth century, the action of pressing inked type onto paper naturally took the name 'printing'. The spelling stays comfortably regular here: the only thing to watch is that the silent shift from premere to 'print' hides the original 'press' sense entirely.

How the word is built

• print (from Old French preinte: an impression made by pressing)
• -ing (noun/gerund suffix)