characters per inch

noun

A unit of measurement of the number of typographic characters that fit on a one inch line of printed type. This unit is mainly used to specify font sizes that have the same width for each character (monospaced), however it may also be used to give an average for fonts with characters of varying widths.

“Please use a type that is 10 characters per inch.”

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Meanings

nouncharacters per inch pl (plural only, abbreviation cpi)

abbreviation cpi

  1. pluralplural onlyartsA unit of measurement of the number of typographic characters that fit on a one inch line of printed type. This unit is mainly used to specify font sizes that have the same width for each character (monospaced), however it may also be used to give an average for fonts with characters of varying widths.

    Please use a type that is 10 characters per inch.

  2. pluralplural onlyelectronic mediaA unit of measurement of the number of characters per inch ("linear packing density") when storing data on certain types of magnetic media or tape, used to measure storage density that the encoding medium possesses.
Cite this entry
APA

characters per inch. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/characters%20per%20inch

MLA

“characters per inch.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/characters%20per%20inch. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “characters per inch,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/characters%20per%20inch.

Source: characters per inch on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.