In any case, there seems to be consensus among scholars that the word "Moḍī" is a translation of the Persian word "Shikasta", which means "breaking". Modi was developed as a faster way of writing Marathi as compared to the more complicated Devanagari script. This was done by "breaking" some of the characters of the alphabet (to make them simpler) and also by making them more "circular" in shape, which aided in moving from one character to the next without lifting the pen from the paper. Thus, Modi was a sort of "cursive" (not "shorthand") style of writing Marathi, although reading it may not have been as easy.

Charles Wilkins developed Moḍī metal types, which were used to a limited extent to publish books. The script was still in use until around 1950, when it was officially discontinued due to the difficulty in printing with this script. All Marathi writing since then has been written and printed in the Devanagari script, which is the same script as is used to write Hindi and some other Indian languages.

Some linguists in Pune have recently begun trying to revive the script