orthography
noun
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The concept of orthography (a term that comes from the Greek words orthos, meaning “right or true,” and graphein, meaning “to write”) was not something that really concerned English speakers until the introduction of the printing press in England in the second half of the 15th century. From that point on, English spelling became progressively more uniform. Our orthography has been relatively stable since the 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, with the notable exception of certain spelling reforms, such as the change of musick to music. Incidentally, many of these reforms were championed by Merriam-Webster’s own Noah Webster.
Examples of orthography in a Sentence
Robert Klose, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Sep. 2023
By the 19th century, though, proper orthography had become big business.
—Melissa Mohr, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 June 2024
Many of the library’s manuscripts, some dating to the ninth century and written in Devanagari script (an ancient orthography system still used across the Indian subcontinent) on birch bark and palm leaves rolled up and held by clay seals, had been moved downstairs.
—Joshua Hammer, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 May 2024
The class is held on Wednesdays via Zoom and will be covering Moses-Columbian language history, phonetics/orthography, vocabulary, and grammar.
—oregonlive, 8 Oct. 2021
The monks struggled to fit Latin orthography onto some Anglo-Saxon sounds.
—Melissa Mohr, The Christian Science Monitor, 16 Aug. 2021
In 1870, reading English was required for Harvard, while Princeton required English grammar and orthography.
—Melissa Gira Grant, The New Republic, 9 Aug. 2021
But English is, of course, a very peculiar language, as Bernard Shaw complains, the orthography and the pronunciation have nothing in common.
—Gabe Friedman, sun-sentinel.com, 17 Oct. 2019
The governments of Nunavut and of Canada, the newspaper’s biggest advertisers, still want adverts set in syllabics and in the roman orthography now used for Inuinnaqtun, an official language in the territory.
—The Economist, 3 Oct. 2019
Articles Related to orthography
Cite this Entry
“Orthography.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orthography. Accessed 14 Feb. 2025.
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orthography
noun
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