| 释义 |
‖ lettre|lɛtr|
The French word for ‘letter’ in: a. lettre de cachet |lɛtr də kaʃɛ|, lit. ‘letter of seal’, a warrant issued in the France of the ancien régime for the imprisonment of a person without trial at the pleasure of the monarch. Also transf. Cf. cachet 1.
1718Vanbrugh Let. 30 Aug. in Athenæum (1890) 30 Aug. 290/2, I am far from having the least doubt of his intentions to me; I fear only those same letters [sic] de cachet, that surprise folks every now and then. 1745H. Walpole Let. 1 Aug. in Corr. (1941) IX. 23 Before the play itself is suppressed by a lettre de cachet to the booksellers. 1799Malthus Diary 16 July (1966) 159 [Norway] These men seemed to have been placed by lettres de cachet exactly similar to those in France. 1824Scott Redgauntlet III. vi. 163 There are sharp laws in France against refractory pupils—lettres de cachet are easily come by. 1849Thackeray Pendennis I. vii. 70 Why are there no such things as lettres-de-cachet—and a Bastille for young fellows of family? 1895S. Weyman From Mem. Minister of France 138 M. de Clan..is for shutting him up. Getting a lettre de cachet..and away with him. 1916A. Huxley Let. 31 Mar. (1969) 96 A lettre de cachet from a Lord Lieutenant..can put one snugly away in the Jail or Jug without any prospect of a trial for periods quite indefinitely coextensive with the war or even eternity. 1957C. Brookfield tr. Durkheim's Professional Ethics & Civic Morals vii. 87 Louis XIV, clearly, was able to issue his lettres de cachet against anyone he wished.
b. Used as the first element in lettre bâtarde, lettre de forme, lettre de somme, to designate groups of early type-faces based on manuscript forms then current, now more often described as bastarda, textura, and rotunda or fere-humanistica types.
1887T. B. Reed Hist. Old Eng. Letter Foundries i. 53 The Gothic letter employed by the inventors of printing for the Bible, Psalter, and other sacred works, was an imitation of the formal hand of the German scribes... This letter, as a typographical character, took the name of Lettre de Forme. Ibid., The term [sc. lettre de forme]..was used by both Tory and Ycair to denote a class of letter which the former denominated Canon, or cut according to rule, as opposed to the more fanciful lettres bâtardes. Ibid. 54 The Lettre de Somme of the Germans..became in the hands of the fifteenth century printers a rival to the Gothic. 1922D. B. Updike Printing Types I. iv. 60 Fifteenth century Gothic type-forms may be roughly sub⁓divided into Pointed, sometimes called lettre de forme, Round, sometimes called lettre de somme, and a vernacular Cursive black-letter, like the French lettre batarde... These three type-forms were the black-letter equivalents of the formal, less formal, and cursive manuscript-hands of the Roman period. Ibid. 63 The lettre de somme is said (without much authority) to derive its name from the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, for which..it was early employed. 1927R. B. McKerrow Introd. Bibliogr. 289 The lettre de forme,..derived from the most formal script,..is in general of a rather narrow and pointed character, tending everywhere to angularity. Ibid., Certain of the smaller sizes used by Wynkyn de Worde and Grafton..seem very definitely to have that feeling of breadth and openness which is characteristic of the lettre de somme. Ibid., The lettre bâtarde represents the cursive hand of its time. 1962N. E. Binns Introd. Historical Bibliogr. (ed. 2) xiv. 182 The rigid and formal types of this group are known as Textura types, or..Lettre de Forme. Ibid., A broader, rounder, and less formal kind of type known as Fere-Humanistica, or Lettre de Somme. Ibid. 185 The early German and French printers also used various cursive types..known as Bastarda, or Lettre Bâtarde. |