brevigraph

plural brevigraphs

1. Modified letter or letter with diacritics, used as an abbreviation of a sequence of letters.

   1 more example

   Early prints used many abbreviations which were the descendants of the abbreviations used in manuscripts; we discuss here a subset of them, called brevigraphs. Quite often they consisted of a regular non-modified letter supplemented by a diacritical mark, usually a macron or a similar glyph, placed above. It is natural to call them composed brevigraphs. On the other hand there are abbreviations in a shape of a modified letter or a letter-like symbol; we call them basic brevigraphs even if they are accompanied by a diacritical mark.

   2024, Janusz S. Bień, “Basic Latin brevigraphs listed in Polonia Typographica Saeculi Sedecimi — progress report”, in TUGboat, volume 45, number 1