Also 7 fonte. [ad. Fr. fonte, f. fondre to melt, cast.]
1. a. The action or process of casting or founding. lit. and fig. rare. b. concr. Cast iron.
1578. Inventories (1815), 249. Ane moyane of fonte markit with the sallamandre having ane new stok without yron werk.
1676. Marvell, Mr. Smirke, 34. Yet sometimes it happens the Printing of a Sermon is toilsome afterwards and hazardous; for even one that was preached before His Majesty, and by his special command to be Printed, is it seems making over again, there having been sure some error in the Fonte, and has lay’d several months in disobedience.
1883. C. C. Perkins, Itat. Sculpt., 273. When the figure was ready to be cast in bronze, Michelangelo seems suddenly to have remembered that, as he knew nothing of the processes of the font, he could not go on without the assistance of a skilled workman.
2. Printing. (In England usually FOUNT, q.v.)
