Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The art or study of correct spelling according to established usage.
  • noun The aspect of language study concerned with letters and their sequences in words.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The art or practice of writing words with the proper letters, according to accepted usage; the way in which words are customarily written; spelling: as, the orthography of a word.
  • noun In the following passage it is used erroneously, in burlesque:
  • noun The branch of language-study which treats of the nature and properties of letters, and of the art of writing words correctly.
  • noun In musical notation, the art or practice of representing tones and effects by the proper characters, according to accepted usage.
  • noun In draftsmanship, a geometrical representation of an elevation or section of a building; a sectional view of a fortress or the like.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The art or practice of writing words with the proper letters, according to standard usage; conventionally correct spelling; also, mode of spelling.
  • noun The part of grammar which treats of the letters, and of the art of spelling words correctly.
  • noun A drawing in correct projection, especially an elevation or a vertical section.
  • noun The method of spelling the words of a particular language; the system of symbols used for writing a language.
  • noun The branch of linguistics concerned with how languages are written.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The study of correct spelling according to established usage.
  • noun The aspect of language study concerned with letters and their sequences in words.
  • noun Spelling; the method of representing a language or the sounds of language by written symbols.
  • noun architecture Orthographic projection; especially its use to draw an elevation, vertical projection etc. of a building.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a method of representing the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman ortografie, Middle French ortografie, ortographie, and their source, Latin orthographia, from Hellenistic Ancient Greek ὀρθογραφία, from ὀρθός (orthos, "correct") and γράφω (gráphō, "write").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word orthography.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • I stumbled across a video of David Wolman promoting his book Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling at Google (from March 26, 2009): “Righting the Mother Tongue tells the cockamamie story of English spelling. When did ghost acquire its silent 'h'? Will cyberspace kill the one in rhubarb? And was it really rocket scientists who invented spell-check?”

    I don’t know if the book is any good, but I think it likely someone here will enjoy the talk.

    October 6, 2012