Italic type - Definition and Overview

Italic type is a form of type that slants slightly to the right used to distinguish or otherwise set off certains words within text.

An example of italic text.

Italics are used for:

• Emphasis.
• The titles of works that stand by themselves, such as books or newspapers. Works that appear within larger works, such as short stories or newspaper articles, are not italicized, but merely set off in quotation marks.
• The names of ships.
• Foreign words.
• Words used as words.

If something within a run of italics needs to be italicized itself (for example, the name of a ship within a sentence already italicized for emphasis), the type is switched back to non-italicized ("Roman") type.

Italic type can be produced in HTML through the use of the <i> tag, although this usage is deprecated in favor of CSS solutions (see below). When an author wants to indicated emphasized text, which is often rendered in italics, they should use the <em> tag, though this should not be relied on to render in italics. Italic type is achieved in CSS by using the statement font-style: italic;

In media where italicization is not possible (such as a typewriter or handwriting), underlining is typically used instead.