Punchcutting

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The process of carving a punch, a steel tool used to create letterforms in traditional typography; the art of shaping punches that serve as molds for producing typefaces; the technique of engraving metal punches to craft the raised characters for printing presses
2. A skill involving the engraving of letter punches for manual type casting; the act of cutting detailed letter shapes into steel punches for printing; a specialized metalworking craft that forms the basis for movable type production
3. The method of hand-carving steel punches that define typographic letters; the technique of producing letter punches used in creating printing molds; an essential step in the manual creation of type by shaping individual letter punches

Etymology: Punchcutting is a plain compound: "punch" joined to "cutting," the gerund of "cut." The punch in question is the steel rod, engraved at one end with a mirror-image letter, which was struck into softer copper to make a matrix. That matrix was then used as a mold for casting type, so the whole craft depends on cutting backwards and in reverse. The word's pieces are therefore literal. A punch is driven into metal, and cutting is the act of shaping it, so the compound names the process of engraving those steel letter-stamps. Because the letters must read correctly on paper, the cutter works each character as a reversed image, which is why the skill was prized and rarely taught widely.

Synonyms: type punch cutting, type engraving