Cursive

Cursive (from Latin curro, currere, cucurri, cursum, to run, hasten) is any style of handwriting that is designed for writing notes and letters quickly by hand. In the Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic writing systems, the letters in a word are connected, making a word one single complex stroke.

In the United States of America, the name of "cursive" is most commonly used to describe this style of writing. In the United Kingdom and in Ireland, the phrase "joined-up writing", "real writing" or "joint writing" is far more commonly used, while the term "running writing" or just "cursive" is most commonly used in Australia. Cursive is also commonly known as simply "handwriting" in Canada and New Zealand. Cursive is considered distinct from the "printing" or "block letter" style of writing, in which the letters of a word are unconnected, and from "print-writing", which is a cross between cursive and printing, with some unconnected letters and some connected.

In Roman cursive, the letters are not connected. In the research domain of handwriting recognition, this writing style is called "connected italic", to indicate the difference between the phenomenon of italic script and sloppy appearance of individual letters ("cursive") and the phenomenon of connecting strokes between letters, i.e., a letter-to-letter transition without a pen lift ("connected cursive").

The origin of the cursive style is associated with practical advantages (writing speed, sparse pen lifting avoids ink smudges with the quill) and the individuality of the provenance of a document, as opposed to machine font.