Typebars

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Metal bars on a typewriter that strike the ribbon to print characters on paper
2. Long thin pieces of metal inside a typewriter that hit the inked ribbon to form letters
3. The mechanical arms in a typewriter that press the ink ribbon to transfer letters onto a page

Etymology: Typebars were the metal levers inside early typewriters, each carrying a single letter at one end and swinging up to strike the paper. Their design dates to the 1860s, when Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule worked on the machine that Remington would manufacture from 1873. The problem they solved was jamming: if keys were struck in quick succession, neighbouring levers tangled, so the inventors arranged the letters in the QWERTY layout partly to slow typists down. The word itself is a plain compound of "type" and "bar," and it was used this way from the late nineteenth century as the machines spread. Its literal sense has stayed fixed, even as the mechanism has largely vanished from everyday life. Electric and electronic machines replaced the levers with other striking systems, but the term kept its place in discussions of how early typewriters worked.

Synonyms: type levers, type hammers