In traditional letterpress printing, a letter is a single piece of cast metal type bearing a raised character on its face. The term is also used collectively to describe all the physical type owned by a shop, or to designate a specific style of typeface. Before digital typesetting, compositors physically picked and placed each letter into a composing stick to build lines of text.
Heard on the job
Make sure you clean the ink off the letter before you distribute it back into the case.
Insider tip
You will mostly hear this used collectively by veteran letterpress operators, as in 'a shop with good letter'.