letter (redirected from lettering)

a Dear John letter

a letter a woman writes to her boyfriend telling him that she does not love him anymore. Bert got a Dear John letter today from Sally. He was devastated.

See also: dear, john

bread-and-butter letter

a letter or note written to follow up on a visit; a thank-you note. When I got back from the sales meeting, I took two days to write bread-and-butter letters to the people I met. I got sort of a bread-and-butter letter from my nephew, who wants to visit me next summer.

dash a note off and dash a letter off

to write a note or letter quickly and send it off. I have to dash this letter off, then I will be with you. I'll dash off a note to her.

See also: dash, note

dead letter 

1. a piece of mail that is returned to the post office as both undeliverable and unreturnable. At the end of the year, the post office usually has bushels of dead letters. Some of the dead letters are opened to see if there is an address inside.

2. an issue, law, or matter that is no longer important or that no longer has force or power. His point about the need for education reform is a dead letter. It is being done now. This point of law is a dead letter since the last Supreme Court ruling on this matter.

See also: dead

red-letter day

Fig. an important or significant day. (From the practice of printing holidays in red on the calendar.) Today was a red-letter day in our history. It was a red-letter day for our club.

See also: day

to the letter

exactly as instructed; exactly as written. I didn't make an error. I followed your instruction to the letter. We didn't prepare the recipe to the letter, but the cake still turned out very well.

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a dead letter

an agreement or a law which still exists but which people do not obey or which is not effective any more The ceasefire agreement was a dead letter as soon as it was signed since neither side had any intention of keeping to it.

See also: dead

a Dear John letter  (humorous)

a letter that you send to a man telling him you want to end a romantic relationship with him I've always thought Dear John letters a cowardly way of ending a relationship.

See also: dear, john

a four-letter word

a short word that is extremely rude The player was suspended after using a variety of four-letter words in front of the umpire.

See also: word

a French letter  (informal, old-fashioned)

a thin rubber covering that a man can wear on his penis during sex to stop a woman becoming pregnant or to protect him or his partner against infectious diseases In those days, French letters were the only form of contraceptive we had.

See also: french

a man of letters  (formal)

a man, usually a writer, who knows a lot about literature A distinguished statesman and man of letters, he was born just before the turn of the century.

See also: man

a poison-pen letter

a letter that has no signature and says unpleasant things about the person it is sent to After he was convicted, his family received a number of poison-pen letters.

a red-letter day

a day that is very important or very special The day our daughter was born was a real red-letter day for us.

See also: day

the letter of the law  (formal)

the exact words of a law and not its more important general meaning There is always the danger that a judge may follow the letter of the law rather than its spirit.

See also: law

to the letter  (slightly formal)

if you follow instructions or obey rules to the letter, you do exactly what you are told to do I followed the instructions to the letter but I still couldn't get it to work.

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to the letter

completely or exactly I followed the instructions to the letter but I still couldn't put the fan together.