Grecs du roi

English

A page taken from Robert Estienne's 1550 edition of the New Testament, which was typeset with the Grecs du roi.

Alternative forms

• Grecs du Roi, grecs du roi

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French Grecs du roi (literally “king’s Greeks”).

Proper noun

the Grecs du roi

1. (typography) An influential Greek minuscule typeface created by Claude Garamond.
   • 1922, Daniel Berkeley Updike, Printing Types, Their History, Forms, and Use; A Study in Survivals, page 236:

     Garamond's caractères de l'Université, in four sizes of roman and italic, and the grecs du roi in three sizes, became the nucleus of the magnificent collection of types now belonging to the Imprimerie Nationale de France.

   • 1992, David McKitterick, A History of Cambridge University Press: Volume 2, Scholarship and Commerce, 1698-1872, page 66:

     In Paris, the Grecs du Roi had been celebrated ever since they had been cut by Claude Garamond in the mid-sixteenth century; but they remained privileged types, restricted for the use of the Imprimerie Royale.

   • 1992, Nicolas Barker, Aldus Manutius and the Development of Greek Script & Type in the Fifteenth Century, page 2:

     Vergecio's hand became in turn the model for the grecs du roi, themselves the model by which Greek type was measured for almost three hundred years.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Grecs du roi.

French

Etymology

Compound of Grecs (“Greeks”) +‎ du (“of the”) +‎ roi (“king”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁɛk dy ʁwa/

Proper noun

Grecs du roi m

1. (typography) Grecs du roi