Brevier

/brəˈvɪr/ noun

Definition

A size of printing type that is smaller than regular text but larger than minion, historically used for dense texts like prayer books.

Etymology

From Late Latin 'breviarium' (a summary or abridgment), referring to a breviary (a prayer book). The term shifted to describe the typeface size used in these condensed religious texts.

Kelly Says

The Gutenberg Bible used brevier type—it's named after breviary books, which needed to pack lots of prayers into small pages, so they invented an in-between font size just for them!

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