"thin space" meaning in English

See thin space in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: thin spaces [plural]
Etymology: thin + space. First use appears c. 1683 in the writings of Joseph Moxon. Etymology templates: {{com|en|thin|space}} thin + space Head templates: {{en-noun}} thin space (plural thin spaces)
  1. (letterpress typography) A metal block used to separate words, one fifth of an em in width. Categories (topical): Typography Synonyms: 5-to-the-em space, 5-em space
    Sense id: en-thin_space-en-noun-Ity46iO8 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 56 44 Topics: letterpress-typography, media, publishing, typography
  2. (typography) In digital text, a character representing a thin space. Categories (topical): Typography Synonyms: 5-to-the-em space, 5-em space
    Sense id: en-thin_space-en-noun-pd39BCeS Topics: media, publishing, typography

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for thin space meaning in English (3.4kB)

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        "2": "thin",
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      "expansion": "thin + space",
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  "etymology_text": "thin + space. First use appears c. 1683 in the writings of Joseph Moxon.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "thin spaces",
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          "ref": "1683, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the art of Printing., volume 2, pages 240–41",
          "text": "If it be only a Single Letter or two that drops, he thruſts the end of his Bodkin between every Letter of that Word, till he comes to a Space: and then perhaps by forcing thoſe Letters closer, he may have room to put in another Space or a Thin Space; which if he cannot do, and he finds the Space ſtand Looſe in the Form; he with the Point of his Bodkin picks the Space up and bows it a little; which bowing makes the Letters on each ſide of the Space keep their parallel diſtance; for by its Spring it thruſts the Letters that were cloſed with the end of the Bodkin to their adjunct Letters, that needed no cloſing.",
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        "A metal block used to separate words, one fifth of an em in width."
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        "(letterpress typography) A metal block used to separate words, one fifth of an em in width."
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          "ref": "2002, Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (version 2.5), Vancouver, Hartley & Marks, p 43",
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        "(typography) In digital text, a character representing a thin space."
      ],
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          "word": "5-to-the-em space"
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{
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          "text": "If it be only a Single Letter or two that drops, he thruſts the end of his Bodkin between every Letter of that Word, till he comes to a Space: and then perhaps by forcing thoſe Letters closer, he may have room to put in another Space or a Thin Space; which if he cannot do, and he finds the Space ſtand Looſe in the Form; he with the Point of his Bodkin picks the Space up and bows it a little; which bowing makes the Letters on each ſide of the Space keep their parallel diſtance; for by its Spring it thruſts the Letters that were cloſed with the end of the Bodkin to their adjunct Letters, that needed no cloſing.",
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        {
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        "(typography) In digital text, a character representing a thin space."
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.