Near letter quality
A dot-matrix print mode that ran the head over each line more than once to fill the gaps between dots and approach the even text of a typewriter.
A 9-pin dot-matrix printer in draft mode left visible gaps between the dots. NLQ sent the head across a second time, slightly offset, so the extra row of dots filled the holes — the result was darker, denser characters that "nearly" matched the letter quality of a daisy-wheel printer. The cost was speed: NLQ could run two to four times slower than draft.
Epson and others turned NLQ into a selling point in the 1980s. 24-pin printers produced smoother output still and narrowed the gap to true letter quality (LQ) until it barely mattered.