🔤 A letter variant ✍️ A false signature

allograph

9.9

A different written form of a letter, like capital or lowercase

noun
/ˈæl.əˌɡrɑːf/

Specialized

: alografo

The teacher explained that in typography, each different style of the letter 'G' is considered an allograph.

Examples

In cursive writing, the letter 'a' can have many different forms, illustrating how each allograph contributes to personal style.
When typing in all caps, the letter 'e' appears differently; this is yet another example of an allograph.
DuBois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folks: Essays and Sketches. New York: Allograph, 1968. Print.

Academic text (2016)

Synonyms

glyph

vsallograph

15 8.9

A carved or written sign that stands for something in writing

is a variant form of a letter showing different style or case

Surface Forms

allograph singular

allographs plural

Morphology

allograph = graph (semi-transparent) = allo + graph

The meaning is built from 'allo-' ('other') plus 'graph' ('written form'), but the first element is a learned combining form and the sense is somewhat technical.

Etymology

Allograph comes from the Greek parts allo- meaning 'other' and -graph meaning 'writing', like the familiar word autograph. So an allograph is literally an 'other writing', a different written form of the same letter, such as print versus cursive or 'A' and 'a'.