writhen, writhun

[WRITHE.) Twisted, twined. "Vengeance, ye powers (he cries), and thou whose hand Aims the red bolt, and hurls the writhen brand!" Pope: Homer's Ody ey, xii. 446. writ-ing, *wryt-ing, *wryt-ynge, pr . par ., a. . [WRITE, υ.] A. As pr . par .: (See the verb.) B. As adj.: Pertaining to the art or act of writing; used for writing. C. As substantive: 1. The actor art of forming letters and characters on paper, parchment, wood, stone, or other material, for the purpose of recording ideas or of communicating them to others by visible signs. Writing may be divided into ideographic and phonographic, i. e., into signs representing the things symbolized by words, and signs representing sounds-that is, words themselves. In Egyptian hieroglyphs we have ideographs and phonographs mixed together; and the same thing occurs in the Mexican picture-writing. It is generally agreed that the art of writing was introduced to the western nations by the Phœnicians about 1500 B. С. Their system was probably based on the Egyptian. The Egyptians had three distinct kinds of writing -the hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and the enchorial or demotic. (See these words.) The Greeks at first wrote from right to left; next they adopted a method called boustrophedon, from the motion of the ox in plowing that is, alternately from right to left, and from left to right. Writing from left to right is said to have been introduced in the time of Homer by Pronapides of Athens. In ancient Greek and Roman writing the words were not separated by spaces, and no punctuation marks were used. In medieval MSS. a variety of styles were used in different epochs and countries, and for different uses. [MAJUSCULE, MINUSCULE.) Uncial letters prevailed from the seventh to the tenth century. [UNCIAL.] The Gothic cursive was introduced about the middle of the thirteenth century. The Modern German alphabet was also introduced about the same time. The Norman style came in with the Conqueror. The English court hand, an adaptation of Saxon, prevailed from the sixteenth century to the reign of George II., when its use was legally sin, as; expect, Xenophon, exist. ph = f. abolished. There are no traces of writing in Britain previous to the Roman period. The Runic alphabet, used for many centuries in Denmark, Norway, and Iceland, was based on the Roman. Chinese characters are syllabic, and as Chinese words are monosyllables, they are strictly ideographic. Their system is said to contain 40,000 characters. Sanscrit po e es the most perfect known alphabet; its consonants number forty-three and its vowel signs fourteen. It is written from left to right. [CUNEIFORM, OGHAM, PHONETIC, RUNIC, SHORTHAND.] 2. That which is written; anything written or expre ed in letters; as (1) An inscription. "And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cro . And the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews." -John xix. 19. (2) A literary or other composition: a manuscript, a book, a pamphlet. (Generally in the plural.) "Time had thrown the writings of many poets into the river of oblivion." -Dryden: Cleomenes. (Ep. Ded.)