Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The metal base on which the face of a type is cast. ‘Body’ is used to describe the height of a type as it appears in print, as pica or l2-point body, or as nonpareil or 6-point body. It does not define the width of a type. The square or emquadrat of a type is understood as its body.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Roughly speaking, a point is one-seventy-second of an inch, so that in three-point type, for example, the thickness of the type-body, from the top to the bottom of the letter on its face, is one-twenty-fourth of an inch.

    A Librarian's Open Shelf Arthur E. Bostwick

  • The various attempts to standardize type-sizes and to adopt a suitable notation for them have been limited hitherto to the sizes of the type-body and bear only indirectly on the size of the actual letter.

    A Librarian's Open Shelf Arthur E. Bostwick

  • But on this type-body the face may be large or small -- although of course, it cannot be larger than the body, -- and the size of the letters called by precisely the same name in the point notation may vary within pretty wide limits.

    A Librarian's Open Shelf Arthur E. Bostwick

  • Capitals occupy more of the type-body than lower-case letters and consequently words or lines set entirely with capitals need wider spacing and leading than the lower-case to make composition readable.

    Capitals A Primer of Information about Capitalization with some Practical Typographic Hints as to the Use of Capitals 1900

  • Some printers go so far as to miter or shave the type-body of initials to make them, when printed, seem to cling more closely to the following text.

    The Booklover and His Books Harry Lyman Koopman 1898

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