[f. Gr. ταχύ-ς swift + -GRAPHY.] ‘The art or practice of quick writing’ (J.); variously applied to shorthand, and (in palæography) to cursive as distinguished from angular letters, to the Egyptian hieratic, and to the Greek and Latin writing of the Middle Ages with its many abbreviations and compendia.
1641. Shelton (title), Tachygraphy. The most exact and compendious methode of short and swift writing.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Tachygraphy, the art or description of swift writing.
1778. Kippis, Biog. Brit. (ed. 2), I. 538, note. Thomas Shelton became famous … for his Tachygraphy; or easy, exact, and speedy short writing.
1826. Edin. Rev., XLV. 145. The Hieratic … is immediately derived from the hieroglyphic, of which it is merely a tachygraphy.
1890. E. M. Thompson, in Classical Rev., May, 220/1. The twofold system of tachygraphy, if it may be so termed, in use among the scribes of the middle ages.
