handwriting

[hand-rahy-ting] /ˈhændˌraɪ tɪŋ/
noun
1.
writing done with a pen or pencil in the hand; script.
2.
a style or manner of writing by hand, especially that which characterizes a particular person; penmanship:
an eccentric handwriting.
3.
a handwritten document; manuscript.
Idioms
4.
handwriting on the wall, a premonition, portent, or clear indication, especially of failure or disaster:
The company had ignored the handwriting on the wall and was plunged into bankruptcy.
Also, writing on the wall.
Origin
1375-1425; late Middle English hand writyng; see hand + writing

handwrite

[hand-rahyt] /ˈhændˌraɪt/
verb (used with object), handwrote or (Archaic) handwrit; handwritten or (Archaic) handwrit; handwriting.
1.
to write (something) by hand.
Origin
1840-50; back formation from handwriting
Examples from the web for handwriting
  • It also reminds me of how bad my handwriting has become since the digital age rolled in.
  • Computers can play a pretty good game of chess, transliterate speech and recognise handwriting and faces.
  • The post office can still decipher his handwriting, and deliver the letter to his intended recipient.
  • In this study, he recruited volunteers on the pretense that they were needed for a handwriting study.
  • Those who had learned the letters by handwriting came out best in all tests.
  • Or a pharmacist dispenses the wrong drug because he misreads the doctor's handwriting on the prescription.
  • Sadly, his handwriting doesn't have the same precision as his drawings.
  • Reading someone's handwriting can be incredibly intimate and revealing, perhaps especially in an age of e-mail and texting.
  • Our handwriting was the only thing that separated us, the only way to determine which section was whose.
  • He scribbled some notes on a blank page in spidery handwriting.
British Dictionary definitions for handwriting

handwriting

/ˈhændˌraɪtɪŋ/
noun
1.
writing by hand rather than by typing or printing
2.
a person's characteristic writing style: that signature is in my handwriting
Word Origin and History for handwriting
n.

c.1500, from hand (n.) + writing, translating Latin manuscriptum. Hand in the sense of "handwriting, style of writing" is from late 14c.

An ordinary note in his [Horace Greeley's] handwriting is said to have been used for a long time as a railroad pass, then as a servant's recommendation, and finally taken to a drug-store as a doctor's prescription. ["Frank Leslie's Magazine," August 1884]

handwriting in the Bible

(Col. 2:14). The "blotting out the handwriting" is the removal by the grace of the gospel of the condemnation of the law which we had broken.