Braille
    n 1: 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) [syn: Braille, Louis Braille]
    2: a point system of writing in which patterns of raised dots
       represent letters and numerals
    v 1: transcribe in braille

Braille \Braille\, n.
   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.
   [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

braille \braille\ v.
   1. to transcribe in Braille.
      [WordNet 1.5]

braille

    /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>.

   (1998-10-19)