nonletter

English

Etymology

From non- +‎ letter.

Noun

nonletter (plural nonletters)

1. That which is not a letter (alphabetic symbol).
   • 1973 June 2, Iver Peterson, “Campus Notes Grant Made for Study‐Incentive Plan”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Manhattanville College in Purchase, N. Y., has joined a small but growing [movement] back to the practice of awarding letter grades after a year's experiment with a nonletter system that was seen as a way of reducing the competitiveness and authoritarian quality of [letter] grading.

   • 1982 April 11, Timothy McDarrah, “THE LETTER-GRADE CONTROVERSY”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     The grading policy now specifies that all students enrolled before the spring 1982 semester in classes of less than 40 students will receive written evaluations, with either a nonletter grade (honors, pass or no credit) or a letter grade on their transcripts. Under the old system, the no-credit notation did not appear on the transcript.

   • 2020 May 29, Jeanna Smialek, “Forget Swooshes and V’s. The Economy’s Future Is a Question Mark.”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     While economists generally say that a W remains entirely possible, they aren’t willing to make it their most-likely forecast because it hinges on two total unknowns: whether there is another spike in infections, and whether states will shut down again if that happens. Analysts who venture a guess increasingly favor a nonletter shape as their base-case: the checkmark.

2. That which is not a letter (written message to be delivered).