also: リガチャ · リガトゥーラ · リガトゥラ
A typographic or medical term for a character combining two or more letters, or a thread used in surgery. The English loanword is used in Japanese technical contexts.
This font has a beautiful 'fi' ligature.
The surgeon ligated the blood vessel with a ligature.
Borrowed from English 'ligature', ultimately from Latin 'ligatura' (a binding). The variant リガトゥーラ reflects the Italian form 'legatura'.