Typecutter

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A skilled artisan who engraves the steel punches used to strike matrices for metal type ; a device or tool that cuts the characters used in printing
2. Someone who carves the original letter forms for printing type ; a mechanical instrument designed to cut the individual characters of a font
3. A craftsman who produces the master letter punches for casting type ; an apparatus for cutting printing characters into metal or other material

Etymology: A typecutter was the craftsman who cut the punches, the hardened steel letter-shapes from which printing type was struck. Before printing, a letter had to be carved in reverse, so that the impression it made in the soft copper matrix would print right way round. That skill belonged to the punchcutter's trade, and the typecutter was the person who practised it. The word is a plain compound: "type", the metal block bearing a raised letter, combined with "cutter", one who cuts. Nothing about it is mysterious, but the two parts reveal the process. The type was the finished piece, and the cutter was the hand that made the original shape in steel before any metal was poured.