Penmanship

Definition: Penmanship

Penmanship

Noun

1. Beautiful handwriting.

Date "penmanship" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1791. (references)

Domain	Definitions
Literature	Penmanship The "Good King Réné," titular king of Naples in the middle of the fifteenth century, was noted for his initial letters. St. Theela, of Isauria, wrote the entire Scriptures out without a blot or mistake. St. Theodosius wrote the Gospels in letters of gold without a single mistake or blur. (See Longfellow's Golden Legend, iv.) (See Angel.). Source: Brewer's Dictionary.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. Different styles of writing have been popular at different times and in different countries, but the standardization of handwriting throughout the English-speaking world began with the publication of The Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship by Platt Rogers Spencer in 1866. This "Spencerian Method" was taught in schools until about the mid-20th century, when it was phased out in favor of the Palmer Method, introduced by A. N. Palmer in his Palmer's Guide to Business Writing published in 1894.

The result of the switch from Spencer to Palmer resulted in a distinct difference in writing styles between older and younger people; the result was that an "old-fashioned" style of handwriting would identify the writer as elderly. (This was less noticeable in centuries past, due to the lack of standardization.) However, since the Palmer Method continues to be taught into the 21st century, barring a change to a newer cursive method this distinction will probably disappear as older Spencer-method writers die out (although it will remain valuable in the dating of manuscripts).

History

At different times of Europe's history the quality of penmanship has varied considerably. During the Roman Empire standards were high and quality writing implements and materials easy to come by. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Dark Ages the quality of handwriting declined markedly. The Carolingian period saw the development of a standardized script (Carolingian minuscule) and the era saw a vast improvement in the quality of penmanship. The documents from this period were of such superior quality when compared with the periods before and after that later historians would often describe this period as a Carolingian Renaissance. The actual Renaissance saw a rejection of the messier Gothic scripts and a return to those of the classical period, again much easier for historians to read.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in part because printing replaced most formal communications, handwriting became extremely cramped, small, and difficult to read. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw another revival of clean formalized handwriting. In the early twenty-first century, with the increasing popularity of electronic communication, some note a decline in the quality of penmanship similar to that brought on by the advent of printing.

Synonym: Penmanship

Synonym: calligraphy (n). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Writing	Noun: writing; Verb: chirography, stelography, cerography; penmanship, craftmanship; quill driving; typewriting.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Penmanship

English words defined with "penmanship": calligrapher, calligraphist, copybook ♦ Pencraft ♦ round hand ♦ Writing book, Writing master, Writing school. (references)

Specialty definitions using "penmanship": GORDON. (references)

Domain	Title
Books	An Elegant Hand: The Golden Age of American Penmanship and Calligraphy (reference) Horizons Penmanship 1 Complete Set (Lifepac) (reference) Ornamental Penmanship (reference) Spencerian System of Practical Penmanship (reference) Theory of Spencerian Penmanship (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

"Penmanship" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Penmanship" is used about 7 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	7	133,076

Expression using "penmanship": of penmanship. Additional references.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "penmanship"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		stil shkrimi, kaligrafi (caligraphy), bukurshkrim (calligraphy). (various references)

Arabic		‏فن الخط, ‏طريقة الخط, ‏أسلوب الخطاط. (various references)

Bulgarian		стил (character, fashion, form, genre, manner, mode, order, pattern, pencil, style, turn, writing), краснопис (calligraphy, pencraft), начин на писане (pencraft, script, strain), почерк (character, hand, handwriting, pencraft, writing), изкуство да се пише (pencraft). (various references)

Chinese		書法 (calligraphy). (various references)

Czech		krasopis (calligraphy), kaligrafie (calligraphy). (various references)

Farsi		طرزنوشتن , خوش خطی , خط (Character, Fascia, Groove, Hand, Handwriting, Ruck, Stoppage, Streak). (various references)

Finnish		kaunokirjoitus (calligraphy). (various references)

French		calligraphie. (various references)

German		Schreibkunst (art of writing). (various references)

Greek		καλλιγραφία (calligraphy), γράψιμο (handwriting, writing). (various references)

Hebrew		אומ� ות �"כתיב�". (various references)

Hungarian		szépírás (calligraphy, pencraft, writing), kalligráfia (calligraphy), betűvetés (lettering), írásművészet (writing). (various references)

Italian		calligrafia (calligraphy, fist, handwriting, paw, writing). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		�'字 . (various references)

Japanese Katakana		しゅうじ (figure of speech, rhetorical flourish), しょほう (calligraphy, every direction, prescription), ようひつ (brush). (various references)

Manx		penneyraght. (various references)

Pig Latin		enmanshippay

Portuguese		autor (actor, author, claimant, complainant, composer, designer, devisor, former, maker, originator, perpetual, prosecuting party, scribe, writer). (various references)

Romanian		stil (build, diction, form, language, manner, order, pencil, period, style, stylus, way, writing), manierã (approach, course, fashion, form, manner, mannerism, mode, sort, stop, style, way), caligrafie (calligraphy, handwriting, pencraft). (various references)

Russian		каллиграфия (calligraphy). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		lepo pisanje, krasnopis (pencraft). (various references)

Spanish		pluma (boom, cantilever, cooling tower plume, feather, hackle, jib-boom, pen, plume, quill, writing), caligrafía (calligraphy, hand). (various references)

Swedish		pennföring, skrivsätt, skrivkonst (writing), handstil (fist, hand, handwriting, script). (various references)

Turkish		yazarlık (authorship, writership, writing), hattatlık (calligraphy, pencraft). (various references)

Ukranian		стиль письменника, каліграфія (calligraphy), почерк (calligraphy, handwriting, paw, script, write, writing). (various references)

Vietnamese		văn phong, thuật viết, lối viết phong cách viết văn, cách viết (phraseology, wording). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "penmanship": penmanships. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Penmanship" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: penmannship, penmenship, Pimarnthip. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Words rhyming with "penmanship" (pronounced 'Pen"man*ship'): Abbotship, Accompliceship, Accountantship, Acquaintanceship, Administratorship, Admiralship, Advisership, Advocateship, AEdileship, Agentship, Airmanship, Aldermanship, Almonership, Amateurship, Ambassadorship, Apostleship, Apprenticeship, Archdeaconship, Archership, Archonship, Assessorship, Associateship, Attorneyship, Auditorship, Augurship, Authorship, Autocratship, Babyship, Bachelorship, Bardship, Beadleship, Beauship, Boatmanship, Burgess-ship, Burghership, Bursarship, Butlership, Cadetship, Candidateship, Canonship, Captainship, Cardinalship, Censorship, Chairmanship, Chamberlainship, Championship, Chancellorship, Chaplainship, Chargeship, Chief-justiceship. (additional references)

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-e-h-i-m-n-n-p-p-s"
	-3 letters: haemins, happens, inphase, mannish, nappies, pinesap, shipman, shipmen, shippen.
	-4 letters: amines, animes, ashmen, haemin, happen, hemins, hennas, inanes, inmesh, insane, inseam, inspan, mashie, mesian, mishap, mispen, nanism, nappes, nappie, pannes, penman, pennia, pennis, pepsin, pinnae, pinnas, semina, shapen, sienna.
	-5 letters: amens, amies, amine, amins, anime, anise, aphis, apish, ashen, aspen, ephas, haems, hames.
	Words containing the letters "a-e-h-i-m-n-n-p-p-s"
	+1 letter: penmanships.
	+5 letters: misapprehending, misapprehension.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

50 65 6E 6D 61 6E 73 68 69 70

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)

⁼

Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)

Braille (1829, in France) (references)

Morse Code (1836) (references)

.--. . -. -- .- -. ... .... .. .--.

Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01010000 01100101 01101110 01101101 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#80 &#101 &#110 &#109 &#97 &#110 &#115 &#104 &#105 &#112

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

0050 0065 006E 006D 0061 006E 0073 0068 0069 0070

British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

Expression	Frequency per Day
penmanship	100
penmanship spencerian	9
penmanship worksheets	7
palmer penmanship	5
improve penmanship	5
penmanship practice	5
book penmanship	4
penmanship teaching	3
home penmanship school	3
penmanship resource	2
font penmanship	2
free penmanship spencerian	2
improving penmanship	2
class penmanship	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Penmanship

Definition: Penmanship

Penmanship

Noun

Specialty Definitions: Penmanship

Specialty Definition: Penmanship

Synonym: Penmanship

Synonyms within Context: Penmanship

Writing

Crosswords: Penmanship

Commercial Usage: Penmanship

Books

Usage Frequency: Penmanship

Expression: Penmanship

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Penmanship

Modern Translations: Penmanship

Albanian

Arabic

Bulgarian

Chinese

Czech

Farsi

Finnish

French

German

Greek

Hebrew

Hungarian

Italian

Japanese Kanji

Japanese Katakana

Manx

Pig Latin

Portuguese

Romanian

Russian

Serbo-Croatian

Spanish

Swedish

Turkish

Ukranian

Vietnamese

Derivations & Misspellings: Penmanship

Derivations

Misspellings

Rhyming with "Penmanship"

Anagrams: Penmanship

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Alternative Orthography: Penmanship

50 65 6E 6D 61 6E 73 68 69 70

.--. . -. -- .- -. ... .... .. .--.

01010000 01100101 01101110 01101101 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000

&#80 &#101 &#110 &#109 &#97 &#110 &#115 &#104 &#105 &#112

0050 0065 006E 006D 0061 006E 0073 0068 0069 0070

50718079678085747582

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