black letter

noun

, Printing.

1. a heavy-faced type in a style like that of early European hand lettering and the earliest printed books. 

black letter

noun

1. printing another name for Gothic

Other Words From

• black-letter adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of black letter¹

First recorded in 1630–40

Example Sentences

"Not only is this rule not authorized by existing law and is actually contrary to black letter Georgia law, but it presents very serious security and chain of custody concerns when numerous poll officials across thousands of polling places across Georgia's 159 counties will have individual access to every ballot cast by millions of Georgia voters at the polls," Houk said, arguing that the "rule appears to be designed to delay final certification of the election, unnecessarily interject more questions about the validity of the count."

From Salon

"Not only is this rule not authorized by existing law and is actually contrary to black letter Georgia law, but it presents very serious security and chain of custody concerns."

From Salon

But the Biden administration doesn’t want to hire neutral asylum officers who are likely to review cases objectively and properly apply the black letter law of asylum.

From Washington Times

Matt Stoller, a prominent critic of big mergers, wrote in a scathing blog post: “There is a lot of grey area in antitrust law, but when two companies want to merge to a monopoly, and announce it as such, that’s a violation of black letter law. In fact, this deal is so wildly and comically against the law that I actually don’t think it is intended to close.”

From New York Times

"That would immediately be a black letter violation of the deal we had with McCarthy to allow his ascent to the Speakership, and it would likely trigger an immediate motion to vacate," he said.

From Salon