braille
Noun · VerbOpen English WordNet
Noun (2)
- French educator who lost his sight at the age of three and who invented a system of writing and printing for sightless people (1809-1852)Synonyms: Louis BrailleInstance of educator, pedagogue
- a point system of writing in which patterns of raised dots represent letters and numeralsType of point system
Verb (1)
- transcribe in brailleMore general transliterate, transcribe
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
A system of printing or writing for the blind in which the characters and numerals are represented by patterns of raised tangible points or dots. It was invented by Louis Braille, a French teacher of the blind.
1. to transcribe in Braille.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: 1913 supplement, WordNet 1.5
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
<human language> /breyl/ (Often capitalised) A class of writing systems, intended for use by blind and low-vision users, which express glyphs as raised dots. Currently employed braille standards use eight dots per cell, where a cell is a glyph-space two dots across by four dots high; most glyphs use only the top six dots.
Braille was developed by Louis Braille (pronounced /looy bray/) in France in the 1820s. Braille systems for most languages can be fairly trivially converted to and from the usual script.
Braille has several totally coincidental parallels with digital computing: it is binary, it is based on groups of eight bits/dots and its development began in the 1820s, at the same time Charles Babbage proposed the Difference Engine.
Computers output Braille on braille displays and braille printers for hard copy.
British Royal National Institute for the Blind (http://rnib.org.uk/wesupply/fctsheet/braille.htm).
(1998-10-19)