| Deco Band | collector term for the Wahl-Eversharp oversized Gold Seal flat-top pen, after its Greek key pattern cap band; also often applied rather indifferently to the same pen when furnished with rhomboid pattern bands | |
| Demi | shorter model of the Parker 51 or late English Aerometric Duofold; sometimes misapplied to other Parker and even non-Parker models | |
| demonstrator | a pen or pencil that has cutouts, or that is made of transparent materials; originally, such pens were made in very limited numbers for salesmen only, and were not offered to the general public | |
| doctor's pen | either a pen in white, sometimes found with a matching thermometer holder, or an eyedropper-filling pen with a compartment in the barrel holding a thermometer | |
| doughnut | collector slang for a Conklin crescent-filler lock nut | |
| drop action | pencil or porte-crayon which extends and retracts by gravity, with a manual release catch; sometimes also called a dropper | |
| ebonite | another name for hard rubber | |
| ED | eyedropper-filler; the simplest fountain pen, typically opened by unscrewing the section, and filled with an eyedropper | |
| FDW | initials of Frank D. Waterman, head of Waterman 1901-1938, nephew of founder Lewis Edson Waterman; found on English-hallmarked Watermans as a maker's mark | |
| feed | the part on which the nib rests, and which carries ink to the nib from the pen's internal reservoir | |
| ferrule | the metallic portion of a dip pen into which the nib is inserted | |
| filigree | an overlay with pierced work; technically incorrect, as true filigree is wirework, but common parlance in the American jewelry trade of the late 19th and early 20th century | |
| Flighter | Parker designation for models with caps and barrels of stainless steel; not applicable to non-Parker pens and pencils | |
| German silver | same as nickel silver; anti-German sentiment during WW1 led to the abandonment of this appellation on US-made products | |
| GFT | gold filled trim | |
| gold filleded | a laminate of gold and brass, made by welding together sheets under heat and pressure; the gold layer is generally much thicker than with gold plating | |
| Gregg | a system of shorthand; several makers produced Gregg models, which typically have an enamel Gregg logo set into the top of the cap | half-Balance | recently-coined term for Sheaffer pens with streamlined cap & flat-bottomed barrel, hybrids produced to get rid of old parts after the introduction of the streamlined "Balance"; often mistakenly called "transitional" |
| half-overlay | pen with its barrel but not its cap metal-covered | |
| "halo" imprint | Parker's logo of an arrow superimposed on an ellipse; the trademark application is dated Dec. 23, 1963, and dates the mark's first use in commerce to Sep. 1958 | |
| hard rubber | also known as ebonite or vulcanite; early naturally-derived plastic made by vulcanizing latex rubber with a large proportion of sulphur; the usual material for fountain pens up until the second half of the 1920, and used for decades thereafter for feeds and sections | |
| hatchet-filler | John Holland's filler of the 'teens, an attempt to get around Sheaffer's lever-filler patents: a hatchet-shaped piece is used to depress a pressure bar; often used to describe Crocker's system as well, which might better be called an end lever filler | |
| holder | in older fountain pen parlance, the "pen" was the nib, and the rest of the pen was termed the holder | |
| hooded nib | a conical hood conceals all but the tip of a small nib inside; the Parker 51 was the first and by far the most popular such design | |
| HR | hard rubber | |
| injector pencil | same as repeating pencil | |
| ink-pellet pen | a number of firms made pens with a compartment to carry ink pellets, which were to be placed in the barrel and dissolved in water; most such pens were eyedroppers, but lever and button-fillers were also produced; sometimes also called a trench pen, in allusion to their marketing to the military during WW1 | |
| ink pencil | another name for a stylographic pen | |
| ink shutoff | safety valve to prevent leakage; the most successful was Onoto's, a system widely adopted in Japan for eyedropper-fillers | |
| Ink-Vue | Waterman filling system of the later '30s, essentially a lever-operated bulb-filler | |
| inlaid nib | a nib permanently fixed to the outside of the section or hood | |
| inner cap | internal cup that seals against the front of the section when the cap is on | |
| integral nib | nib made as part of the section or barrel; Parker's T-1 is the prime example | |
| iridium | generic term for nib tipping material, though other platinum-group metals are more often used instead | |
| italic | chisel-like tip, which makes thick downstrokes and thin cross-strokes | |
| J-bar | cheap one-piece spring and pressure bar used in low end lever-fillers; too often used as an inferior replacement part in better pens | |
| jewel | decorative boss found on some pens at cap top and barrel end | |
| JiF | Waterman's French agency; from the initials of the franchise holder, Jules Fagan | |
| Jointless | Parker eyedropper design where the nib assembly was inserted en bloc inside the end of the barrel; read more here | |
| ladies' pen | general term for a clipless pen with a ringtop fitting, usually a smaller pen; also see vest pocket | |
| LE | abbreviation for limited edition; also the first two initials of Lewis Edson Waterman | |
| LEC | in Waterman's numbering system, a suffix on overlay pens denoting "Lower End Covered" | |
| lever box | Sheaffer's original lever was pinned directly to the barrel; Waterman and others pinned it to a lever box, which was held in the barrel by tabs | |
| Leverless | Mabie Todd/Swan's twist-filling system utilizing an entangling bar and a conventional sac; read more here | |
| LF | lever-filler; the most common filling mechanism, first mass-produced by Sheaffer -- who was not, however, the first to patent it | |
| lid | pots and pans have these; pens have caps | |
| LL | Liquid Lead: a Parker exclusive, a ballpoint that wrote with liquid graphite; refills are no longer available | |
| longshort long and short |
pocket pen with a long cap that covers most of the barrel when closed; when the cap is posted on the barrel end, the overall length is some 50% greater | |
| Lucky Curve | Parker's patented feed, whose part that extended inside the pen's body curved to contact the inside of the ink reservoir | |
| Lustraloy | Parker's name for its matte-finished stainless steel, as used on 51 and 61 caps | |
| magic pencil | retractable pencil with complex internal mechanism: when the end is pulled, the nozzle extends | |
| Mandarin | Parker's Mandarin Yellow, also called Chinese Yellow, a color used in Duofolds of the late '20s and early '30s; unpopular then, highly sought-after now | |
| manifold | a stiff nib, used for making copies with carbon paper | |
| marbled | an irregularly patterned combination of translucent colors; used to describe plastics such as celluloid, but not hard rubber | |
| matchstick filler | a hole in the side of the barrel allows a matchstick to be used to depress the pressure bar; some pens have a nub atop the cap which may be used similarly | |
| MHR | mottled hard rubber | |
| middle joint | a feature in some eyedropper pens, where the screw-joint was placed centrally; read more here | |
| military clip | a clip that permits the pen to sit flush with the top of the pocket, so that a uniform's pocket flap can close over the pen; the term is not generally used for pen models whose clips all fit the above criterion (e.g., the Parker 51) | |
| mottled | multicolored hard rubber, almost always red (orange) and black; the colors are mixed in a random pattern, as opposed to the more regular patterns of woodgrain or Ripple hard rubbers | |
| music nib | a very flexible nib with two slits instead of one, specially made for musical notation | |
| nib | a pen's point; in older parlance, the point itself was called the "pen", and the rest, the holder | |
| nickel silver | tarnish-resistant nonprecious alloy resembling silver; same as German silver | |
| Night & Day | overlay pierced with longitudinal slots; in most instances, this was not the name originally used by the manufacturer ("Moderne" being Waterman's appellation for this pattern, at least in the USA) | |
| Nozac | the only American vintage screw-action piston-filler, made by Conklin in the 1930s | |
| nozzle | the part of a pencil which holds the lead | |
| NPT | nickel-plated trim; in most cases, the trim is actually solid nickel silver | |
| oblique | a chisel-like nib with a tip that angles back at its left; confusingly, also sometimes called a "right oblique" | |
| Octanium | Parker's name for its stainless nib alloy used for economy-line pens of the 1950s and 1960s, such as the Parker 51 Special and the 21. | |
| overfeed | an early type of feed which lies atop the nib; usually extends below as well, and would thus be more accurately termed an over-under feed | |
| overlay | a pen (most commonly made of hard rubber) covered in precious metal, or the metal covering itself; the term is not used to describe pens with all-metal caps or barrels |