ITALIC

I. adjective Date: 1598 1. of or relating to a type style with characters that slant upward to the right (as in “ these words are ~ ”), of or relating to a style of slanted cursive handwriting developed in the 15th and 16th centuries, of or relating to ancient Italy, its peoples, or their Indo-European languages, II. noun Date: 1676 an ~ character or type, a branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Latin, Oscan, and Umbrian