Cursive (also known as script or longhand, among other names), is any style of penmanship in which some characters are written joined together in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster. Formal cursive is generally joined, but casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts. The writing style can be further divided as "looped", "italic", or "connected".
The cursive method is used with a number of alphabets due to its improved writing speed and infrequent pen lifting. In some alphabets, many or all letters in a word are connected, sometimes making a word one single complex stroke.
Cursive is any style of penmanship in which the symbols of the language are written in a and/or flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster. This writing style is distinct from "printscript" using block letters, in which the letters of a word are unconnected and in Roman/Gothic letterform rather than joined-up script. Not all cursive copybooks join all letters: formal cursive is generally joined, but casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts. In the Arabic, Syriac, Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets, many or all letters in a word are connected, sometimes making a word one single complex stroke. In Hebrew cursive and Roman cursive, the letters are not connected. In Maharashtra there is a version of Cursive called 'Modi'
In looped cursive penmanship, some ascenders and descenders have loops which provide for joins.
Cursive italic penmanship—derived from chancery cursive—uses non-looped joins or no joins. In italic cursive, there are no joins from g, j, q or y, and a few other joins are discouraged. Italic penmanship became popular in the 15th-century Italian Renaissance. The term "italic" as it relates to handwriting is not to be confused with italic typed letters that slant forward. Many, but not all, letters in the handwriting of the Renaissance were joined, as most are today in cursive italic.