Fraktur

American  

[frahk-toor] / frɑkˈtur /

noun

1. Printing. German black-letter text, a style of type.

2. (usually lowercase) Also fractur

   1. a stylized, highly decorative watercolor or watercolor-and-ink painting in the Pennsylvania-German tradition, often bearing elaborate calligraphy and standardized motifs, as birds, tulips, mermaids, and unicorns, and typically appearing on a book page, baptismal certificate or other family record, or merchant's advertisement.

   2. the elaborate calligraphy used in frakturs.

---

Fraktur British  

/ frakˈtuːr /

noun

1. a style of typeface, formerly used in German typesetting for many printed works

---

Etymology

Origin of Fraktur

1900–05, < German < Latin frāctūra “action of breaking” (in reference to the curlicues that broke up the continuous line of a word). See fracture

Example Sentences

Polished and engraved in Munich, using the Nazis favourite Fraktur font, it was delivered to Chur on the eve of World War Two.

From BBC • Apr. 1, 2023

Frankenmuth’s German heritage is woven through the city, in the Bavarian Inn’s 50-foot Glockenspiel tower, in the hotel rooms named for founding families and in the Fraktur lettering everywhere.

From New York Times • Nov. 23, 2021

The Fraktur paintings and the massive decorated schranks, or family wardrobes, made by the Pennsylvania Dutch were German decorative arts, transplanted.

From Time Magazine Archive

The translations of the Tyrolese Sonnets in German were originally printed in the Fraktur Font, and with other Blackletter Gothic fonts are represented in "Antiqua" in this e-text.

From The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Volume IV (of 8) by Wordsworth, William

The boldface used for the signature on page 238 indicates characters in a Fraktur typeface.

From Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected Vol. I (of 3) by Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)