What Is Sans-Serif?
A sans-serif typeface has no serifs — the strokes end cleanly without feet. "Sans" is French for "without." These faces look modern, clean, and minimal, and they render crisply on screens at small sizes, which makes them the default for user interfaces and digital body text.
Sans-serif type was once called "grotesque" because 19th-century readers found letters without serifs strange. Today the style spans humanist (warm, calligraphic), geometric (built from circles and lines), and neo-grotesque (neutral) sub-genres.
On low-resolution screens, the absence of fine serifs means fewer details to blur, so sans-serif faces stay legible at sizes where a delicate serif would smear.