Lower case letters ofthe alphabet

What Are Lowercase, Uppercase Letters?

Lowercase letter definition: Lowercase letters are all other letters not in uppercase.

Uppercase letter definition: Uppercase letters are letters that represent the beginning of a sentence or a proper noun.

What are Lowercase Letters?

In writing, most letters are lowercase. Lowercase letters are all letters that do not begin a sentence or refer to a proper noun.

English alphabet lowercase letters: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z.

Examples of Lowercase Letters:

• word
• The word above uses only lowercase letters.
• The sentence above has lowercase letters after the first letter of the sentence.
• This sentence and the one directly above have all lowercase letters except for the “T.”

What are Uppercase Letters?

Uppercase letters are also known as capital letters. Uppercase letters signal to the reader that something is important or significant.

English alphabet uppercase letters: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z.

Examples of Uppercase Letters:

• Jones
  • This is a proper name, so the first letter of the title and the last name are capitalized

• Main Street
  • This is a proper noun so the first letter of each word is capitalized

When to Use Uppercase Letters

In English, the first letter of every sentence is capitalized. The uppercase letter signals to the reader that a new sentence is beginning.

Other uses of uppercase letters are detailed below.

All titles are considered proper nouns and require capitalization.

Examples:

• Miss Mabry
  • Incorrect: miss mabry
• Mathers
  • Incorrect: mr. mathers
• Madam Lockfield
  • Incorrect: madam lockfield
• Lady Grace
  • Incorrect: lady grace
• Janks
  • Incorect: mrs. janks

Acronyms are a type of abbreviation. Acronyms are words formed from other letters to make a new word. However, they require capital letters to signal to the reader that those letters stand for something and are not a word alone.

Examples:

• NATO
  • North Atlantic Treaty Organization
• UNICEF
  • United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
• SCUBA
  • Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

All proper nouns need to be capitalized.

Examples:

• We visited the Bowers Museum on Saturday.
  • Incorrect: We visited the bowers museum on Saturday.
• I would like to tour the Eiffel Tower.
  • Incorrect: I would like to tour the eiffel tower.
• Their names are Jake and Suzy.
  • Incorrect: Their names are jake and suzy.

When to Use Lowercase Letters

Use lowercase letters for all letters other than the first in a sentence, provided that there is no required use for uppercase letters in the sentence.

Examples:

• Every word in this sentence other than the first word is written in lowercase.
• The only words in this sentence that require uppercase letters are the proper nouns, London and Paris.

All nouns that are not proper nouns are called common nouns. All common nouns use lowercase letters (unless a common noun begins a sentence).

Examples:

• tree
• dog
• bird
• water
• air
• star
• street
• girl
• baby

Summary

Define lowercase letters: lowercase letters are those letters used for common nouns and internal words.

Define uppercase letters: uppercase letters (also called capital letters) are those letters that signify the beginning of a sentence or a proper noun.

In summary,

• Uppercase and lowercase letters refer to all letters used to compose the English language.
• Uppercase letters are used to begin sentences and are also used for proper nouns.
• Lowercase letters are all letters that do not begin sentences.

Contents

• 1 What are Lowercase Letters?
• 2 What are Uppercase Letters?
• 3 When to Use Uppercase Letters
  • 3.1 Titles
  • 3.2 Acronyms
  • 3.3 All Proper Nouns
• 4 When to Use Lowercase Letters
• 5 Summary

Lower-case letters Definition & Meaning

• Top Definitions
• Quiz
• More About Lower Case Letters
• Examples

Save This Word!

“Small letters”; letters of the alphabet that are not capital letters or upper-case letters.

QUIZ

SHALL WE PLAY A "SHALL" VS. "SHOULD" CHALLENGE?

Should you take this quiz on “shall” versus “should”? It should prove to be a quick challenge!

Question 1 of 6

Which form is commonly used with other verbs to express intention?

Words nearby lower-case letters

Lower Burrell, Lower California, Lower Canada, Lower Canada Rebellion, lowercase, lower-case letters, lower chamber, Lower Chinook, lower class, lowerclassman, lower criticism

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

MORE ABOUT LOWER CASE LETTERS

What are 

Lowercase letters are the shorter, smaller versions of letters (like w), as opposed to the bigger, taller versions (like W), which are called uppercase letters or capital letters.

The adjective lowercase can also be used as a noun meaning the same thing as lowercase letter, though this is much less commonly used. The adjective uppercase can also be used as a noun in this way. As an adjective, uppercase means the same thing as capital, and uppercase letters can also be called capitals.

Some lowercase letters are just shorter, smaller versions of their uppercase counterparts (like lowercase w and uppercase W or lowercase c and uppercase C), but in many cases the two versions of the letter take different forms altogether, such as lowercase a and uppercase A or lowercase b and uppercase B.

To capitalize a word is to make its first letter a capital or uppercase letter. The word uppercase can be used as a verb to mean the same thing. The word lowercase can be used as a verb meaning to make a letter lowercase. For example, to lowercase the word Polish (which is here spelled with an uppercase p), you would write it with a lowercase P, as polish.

In English, uppercase letters are used at the beginning of words for a few different reasons. It is considered a standard rule of English to use an uppercase letter to start proper nouns (which are nouns that refer to specific people, places, or things—meaning one’s that have specific names), such as Jess, Mexico, and Nintendo. Using an uppercase or lowercase letter at the start of a word can change the way the reader interprets its meaning, as in the case of polish (a verb meaning to make something shinier) and Polish (an adjective describing someone from Poland) or apple (the fruit) and Apple (the company).

We also use an uppercase letter for the first letter of the first word in a sentence. Sometimes, we use an uppercase letter for the first letter of each word in a title, as in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. This is sometimes called title case.

Some acronyms and abbreviations are written using all uppercase letters, such as NASA and U.S. A word written entirely in uppercase letters (like WHAT) is said to be written in caps or all caps.

Using lowercase letters in any of these cases typically indicates that the communication is casual or informal, such as in text messages or online posts.

Example: A lot of people exclusively use lowercase letters in text messages unless they want to emphasize something.

Where does 

The term lowercase letter has been used since at least the 1680s. The words uppercase and lowercase come from printing. The process of physically printing things with printing presses involved trays, called cases, that were divided into compartments for holding different kinds of type (blocks with letters on them). The upper case held capital letters and the lower case held what came to be known as lowercase letters.

It can be confusing to know whether to use uppercase or lowercase letters in certain situations, but a capitalization guide can help.

Did you know ... ?

What are some other forms related to lowercase letter?

• lower-case letter (alternate hyphenated spelling)
• lower case letter (alternate two-word spelling)

What are some synonyms for lowercase letter?

• lowercase (when lowercase is used as a noun)

What are some words that share a root or word element with lowercase letter? 

• lowercase
• uppercase
• uppercase letter
• letter

What are some words that often get used in discussing lowercase letter?

• capital letter
• capital
• capitalization
• spelling
• first
• word
• sentence
• title

How are 

In most contexts, the majority of letters in a text are lowercase letters. Uppercase letters are used in the beginning of names and other proper nouns, at the beginning of sentences, at the beginning of words in titles, and in some abbreviations. Informal communication like text messages and online posts are sometimes written entirely in lowercase letters.

A capital letter in my code where there was supposed to be a lowercase letter just drove me insane for four hours because I didn't see it.

— Kyle Roth (@jkroth2987) October 22, 2015

Identifying and matching uppercase and lowercase letters using these colorful underwater themed cards. Games make learning fun! 🐟 🐠 #IslipENL #LearningIsFun @WingElemIslip pic.twitter.com/QjUSLvuZ57

— Jaclyn Brady (@JaclynBrady17) February 5, 2021

i got a new phone and my new keyboard doesn’t know that i only use lowercase letters so now all my texts are being autocorrected into formal work emails

— noor body, noor crime (@abnoormality) January 17, 2019

Try using 

Which of the following letters is a lowercase letter?

A. e
B. h
C. r
D. all of the above

How to use lower-case letters in a sentence

• Certain features of its history suggest why this may be the case.

  Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST

• And, in the case of fluoride, at least, that doubt might actually be justified.

  Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST

• Her latest book, Heretic: The Case for a Muslim Reformation, will be published in April by HarperCollins.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Our Duty Is to Keep Charlie Hebdo Alive|Ayaan Hirsi Ali|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• Their friendship began when Krauss, who was chairman of the physics department at Case Western in Cleveland, sought out Epstein.

  Sleazy Billionaire’s Double Life Featured Beach Parties With Stephen Hawking|M.L. Nestel|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• A grand juror in the Ferguson case is suing to be able to explain exactly what went down in the courtroom.

  Politicians Only Love Journalists When They're Dead|Luke O’Neil|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST

• The case was an assault and battery that came off between two men named Brown and Henderson.

  The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun;|Various

• In this case, I suspect, there was co-operant a strongly marked childish characteristic, the love of producing an effect.

  Children's Ways|James Sully

• On the upper part of the stem the whorls are very close together, but they are more widely separated at the lower portion.

  How to Know the Ferns|S. Leonard Bastin

• Sometimes in the case of large plants, cones have been known to occur on the tips of the branches of the Marsh Horsetail.

  How to Know the Ferns|S. Leonard Bastin

• As a rule, however, even in the case of extreme varieties, a careful examination of the specimen will enable it to be identified.

  How to Know the Ferns|S. Leonard Bastin

Uppercase and lowercase letters in Russian

Letters of the Russian alphabet have two options for graphic display: uppercase, or uppercase, and lowercase, or small.

Our speech consists of sounds. When we need to write down our thoughts or statements on paper, special graphic icons are used for this - letters . The set of letters arranged in a certain order is alphabet . In total, there are 33 letters in Russian, each of which has two options for graphic display, for example:

• V - c
• D - d
• W - w

Capital letters

A bit of history

In ancient times, large, capital letters were written only at the beginning of the book, as well as chapters, sometimes paragraphs. Each piece of text began with a beautifully designed, ornate capital letter. Such letters were not just written, but drawn or written. That's where this "speaking" name of the initial capital letters of the handwritten text comes from.

In the monuments of the 16th century, especially after the introduction of printing, they began to write a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence after a dot. In later works, there is occasionally a capital letter in the proper names of people and city names. The first attempt to systematize the use of capital letters in the XVII century was made by M. Smotrytsky, who wrote a grammar in which he recommended starting each sentence with a capital letter, as well as the beginning of each line of verses, proper names, and even the names of sciences: Grammar, Logic, etc.

The next attempt to streamline the rules for the use of capital letters was made by Academician J. K. Grot. His reference book for schools "Russian Spelling" ran through twenty editions.

Capitalization

The choice of capitalization is based on the semantics of the words. The main postulate of spelling is that proper names are written with a capital letter, for example:

1. names, surnames, nicknames, pseudonyms, nicknames, names of characters in literary works:

• Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov,
• Saltykov-Shchedrin,
• Demyan poor,
• Ekaterina the Great,
• Richard Lione Heart,
• Elephant and Moska,
• Strrazra and Murasey.
• Pinocchio and Malvina,
• Santa Claus,
• Murka cat:
• White Bim Black Ear.

If the proper name of a literary hero is used in a pejorative sense and becomes a generalized common noun, then in the plural form it is written with a lowercase letter:

• plushkins,
• sobakevichs,
• raskolnikovs,
• boxes,
• whips,
• silences.

2. The names of international organizations, state bodies, the highest state positions, official and unofficial names of states are written with a capital letter:

• 0012
• President of the Russian Federation,
• Chancellor Germany,
• State Duma,
• Federal Assembly,
• Administration of the President of the Russian Federation,
• Upper House of the State Duma,
• Republic of Poland,
• Republic of Tuva,
• Korolevskaya Saudi Arabia .

However, in the unofficial text, the names of the highest positions of states without indicating a specific person are written with a lowercase letter, for example:

The implementation of the agreements concluded will be controlled by the presidents of these countries.

3. Geographical and astronomical names are capitalized, except for generic names (city, river, mountain, region, region, street, star, constellation, etc.) ,