Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A size of printing-type measuring 112 lines to the foot, next larger than minion and smaller than bourgeois. The larger type of this Dictionary, as in the present paragraph, is brevier.
  • noun Figuratively, something smaller than another taken as a norm. Coues, Key to N. A. Birds.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Print.) A size of type between bourgeois and minion.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun typography, dated A size of type between bourgeois and minion.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably from being originally used in printing a breviary.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word brevier.

Examples

  • Murray used four bold fonts: a large-face bold Egyptian, a large-face lighter Egyptian, a small-face lighter Egyptian – all cast on brevier (about 7½ pt) and a nonpareil bold (about 6 pt).

    Not Just a Pretty Face: The Contribution of Typography to Lexicography Paul Luna 2009

  • Murray used four bold fonts: a large-face bold Egyptian, a large-face lighter Egyptian, a small-face lighter Egyptian – all cast on brevier (about 7½ pt) and a nonpareil bold (about 6 pt).

    Archive 2009-02-01 Paul Luna 2009

  • He was walking by the hedge, reading, I think a brevier book with, I doubt not, a witty letter in it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the page.

    Ulysses 2003

  • More or less arbitrary names -- such as minion, bourgeois, brevier, and nonpareil, -- were formerly used; but what is called the point-system is now practically universal, although its unit, the "point," is not everywhere the same.

    A Librarian's Open Shelf Arthur E. Bostwick

  • Amendments made by the Senate striking out words are in brevier, with brackets, and the words inserted in lieu thereof in the handwriting of the Clerk, are in SMALL CAPS.

    Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet An Autobiography. John Sherman

  • Highness, Princess Helen, honoured the Misses Reid and Bryant last evening at a soiree. '-- leaded brevier every morning on the editorial page.

    The Bacillus of Beauty A Romance of To-day Harriet Stark

  • The body of the bill, printed in brevier, is as it came from the House.

    Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet An Autobiography. John Sherman

  • Sixteen pages each page to contain two Columns except the pages containing advertisements each of which are to contain three Columns and that the average size of the Type shall be brevier solid.

    The History of "Punch" M. H. Spielmann

  • After due deliberation he admitted that there was a very striking similarity, only it seemed to him that the other's brevier was a shade thinner in the hair-stroke than his own, and the small caps. would go a thought more to the pound; while as to the semicolons and marks of interrogation, they looked as if they came out of a different font altogether.

    The Book-Hunter A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author John Hill Burton

  • He was walking by the hedge, reading, I think a brevier book with, I doubt not,

    Ulysses James Joyce 1911

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • You'd think there's a fair bit of space between bourgeois and minion.

    March 7, 2016