Printing. Also 8 found; cf. FUND. [See FONT sb.2] A complete set or assortment of type of a particular face and size. Also fully, fount of letter or type.
1683. Moxon, Printing, No. II. ¶ 2. 13. He provides a Fount (properly a Fund) of Letter of all Bodies. Ibid., No. XXIII. 377. Fount. Is the whole number of Letters that are Cast of the same Body and Face at one time.
1687–8. Boyle, Lett., 5 March, in Birch, Life, 417. I caused a font of Irish letters to be cast, and the book to be here reprinted.
1714. Mandeville, Fab. Bees (1728), I. 258. Would you banish Fraud and Luxury, prevent Profaneness and Irreligion, and make the generality of the People Charitable, Good and Virtuous, break down the Printing-Presses, melt the Founds, and burn all the Books in the Island, except those at the Universities, where they remain unmolested, and suffer no Volume in private Hands but a Bible.
1771. P. Luckombe, Hist. Print., 248. A Complete Fount of letter.
1834. Southey, Doctor, I. ii. 27. We discussed the merits of a new font.
1862. Burton, Book-Hunter (1863), 76. Its fiery periods exhausted the largest font of Italics possessed by the establishment.
1878. F. S. Williams, Midl. Railw., 630. He set up a complete fount of type, composing stick, and every requisite for printing tickets.
