Trebuchet MS is a humanist sans-serif typeface

Typeface

In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....

 designed by Vincent Connare

Vincent Connare

Vincent Connare is a former Microsoft in-house font designer. Amongst his creations are the Comic Sans font, and the Trebuchet MS font, both of which ship as standard on current releases of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS...

 for the Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 in 1996. It is named after the trebuchet

Trebuchet

A trebuchet is a siege engine that was employed in the Middle Ages. It is sometimes called a "counterweight trebuchet" or "counterpoise trebuchet" in order to distinguish it from an earlier weapon that has come to be called the "traction trebuchet", the original version with pulling men instead of...

, a medieval catapult

Catapult

A catapult is a device used to throw or hurl a projectile a great distance without the aid of explosive devices—particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. Although the catapult has been used since ancient times, it has proven to be one of the most effective mechanisms during...

. The name was inspired by a puzzle question that Connare heard at Microsoft headquarters: "Can you make a trebuchet that could launch a person from main campus to the new consumer campus about a mile away? Mathematically, is it possible and how?" Connare "thought that would be a great name for a font that launches words across the Internet".
Trebuchet MS distinguishes itself from other common sans-serif typefaces through several characteristics, the most notable of which include:

• The splayed edges of the uppercase "M" which form a 10° angle with a vertical line,
• The shape of the tail of the uppercase "Q",
• The bar of the capital "A" is low,
• The shortened tails of the lowercase "e" and the numerals "6" and "9",
• The hybrid open and looped tail of the lowercase "g",
• The rounded dots above and the shapes of the lowercase "i" and "j",
• The curved tail beneath the lowercase "l",
• The dollar sign symbol "$", in which the vertical strike only appears above the top and below the bottom curves of the S,
• The ampersand
  Ampersand
  An ampersand is a logogram representing the conjunction word "and". The symbol is a ligature of the letters in et, Latin for "and".-Etymology:...
  
   "&" in the form of an "Et" ligature and
• The exclamation point "!", whose dot is large and round.
• Italic fonts incorporate italic type
  Italic type
  In typography, italic type is a cursive typeface based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, such typefaces often slant slightly to the right. Different glyph shapes from roman type are also usually used—another influence from calligraphy...
  
   characteristics instead of just tilting roman glyphs
  Oblique type
  Oblique type is a form of type that slants slightly to the right, used in the same manner as italic type. Unlike italic type, however, it does not use different glyph shapes; it uses the same glyphs as roman type, except distorted...
  
  , making it the first sans serif font family from Microsoft to use true italic features.
• The endash and hyphen
  Hyphen
  The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...
  
   are essentially indistinguishable

Microsoft refers to Trebuchet MS as "a good web design

Web design

Web design is the process of planning and creating a website. Text, images, digital media and interactive elements are used by web designers to produce the page seen on the web browser...

 font", being one of their "Core fonts for the Web

Core fonts for the Web

Core fonts for the Web was a project begun by Microsoft in 1996 to make a standard pack of fonts for the Internet. It was terminated in 2002. It included the proprietary fonts Andale Mono, Arial, Arial Black, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana and...

".