Applied especially to a kind of type in which the letters do not stand upright, but slope toward the right; -- so called because dedicated to the States of Italy by the inventor, Aldus Manutius, about the year 1500.

An Italic letter, character, or type (see Italic, a., 2.); -- often in the plural; as, the Italics are the author's. Italic letters are used to distinguish words for emphasis, importance, antithesis, etc. Also, collectively, Italic letters.

A slanted style of a font, generally used for emphasis. Italic differs from Oblique in that the transformation from the plain to the slanted form involves more than just skewing the letterforms. Generally the lower-case a changes to , the serifs on lower-case letters like i () change, and the font generally gains a freer look to it.

Type in which the characters slant to the right. Roman and cursive styles that are slanted are called italic and sans serif types are called oblique. Normal angle is about 11-1/2 degrees. Double italic is 23 degrees. Italic type can save space because the characters are redesigned narrower and set closer without loss of readability.