Uppercase letter meaning

Upper-case letters Definition & Meaning

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Capital letters. (Compare lower-case letters.)

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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!

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

Words nearby upper-case letters

upper bound, Upper Canada, Upper Canadian, Upper Carboniferous, uppercase, upper-case letters, upper chamber, Upper Chinook, upper class, upperclassman, upper crust

MORE ABOUT UPPER CASE LETTERS

What are

uppercase letters?

Uppercase letters are capital letters—the bigger, taller versions of letters (like W), as opposed to the smaller versions, which are called lowercase letters (like w).

Uppercase means the same thing as capital. Uppercase letters can also be called capitals.

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

To capitalize a word is to make its first letter an uppercase letter. For example, to capitalize the word polish (which is here spelled with a lowercase p), you would write it with an uppercase P, as Polish.

The state of being capitalized or uppercase (or the process of making a letter an uppercase letter) is called capitalization, as in Please check your paper for proper punctuation and capitalization.

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 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.

Example: A lot of people don’t bother using uppercase letters in text messages unless they want to emphasize something.

Where does

uppercase letter come from?

The term uppercase letter has been used since at least the 1730s. 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 or not to use an uppercase letter in certain situations, but a capitalization guide can help.

Did you know ... ?

What are some other forms related to uppercase letter?

upper-case letter (alternate hyphenated spelling)
upper case letter (alternate two-word spelling)

What are some synonyms for uppercase letter?

capital letter
capital
uppercase (when uppercase is used as a noun)

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

uppercase
lowercase
lowercase letter
letter

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

capitalize
capitalization
spelling
first
word
sentence
title

How are

uppercase letters used in real life?

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. In casual use, a word might be written in uppercase letters for emphasis.

She’s back with the classics and the riddles and the puzzles. The uppercase letters say APRIL NINTH. 👏🏻 @taylorswift13 You deserve this, so much. 💛 https://t.co/x7KsswdBPj

— anne⁰⁰ ఌ😺 (@ANNEtisocial) February 11, 2021

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 wonder if i’ll ever use uppercase letters for anything besides emphasis again

— h☼ (@hl_cutie) July 8, 2019

Try using

uppercase letters!

Which of the following kinds of words is often spelled with an uppercase letter at the beginning?

A. proper nouns
B. the first word in a sentence
C. the first word in a title
D. all of the above

How to use upper-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
“Perhaps you do not speak my language,” she said in Urdu, the tongue most frequently heard in Upper India.
The Red Year|Louis Tracy
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

The World's Fastest Dictionary | Vocabulary.

com

upper-case letter one of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis
lower-case letter the characters that were once kept in bottom half of a compositor's type case
hypercoaster a roller coaster that goes up 200 feet or higher and can catapult riders from 0 to 70 mph in 4 seconds by motors originally designed to launch rockets
purchase order a commercial document used to request someone to supply something in return for payment and providing specifications and quantities
percolator a coffeepot in which boiling water ascends through a central tube and filters back down through a basket of ground coffee beans
Broca's center the motor speech center in the left hemisphere of the brain in most people
operculated having an operculum
operculate having an operculum
personal letter a letter dealing with personal affairs
approachability the attribute of being easy to meet or deal with
Upper Paleolithic the time period during which only modern Homo sapiens was known to have existed; ended about 10,000 years BC
approximate not quite exact or correct
approximately imprecise but fairly close to correct
uppercase relating to capital letters which were kept in the top half of a compositor's type case
brake cylinder a cylinder that contains brake fluid that is compressed by a piston
varsity letter an award earned by participation in a school sport
airmail letter a letter sent by air mail
market letter a newsletter written by an analyst of the stock market and sold to subscribers
paper cutter a cutting implement for cutting sheets of paper to the desired size
open letter a letter of protest

When a capital letter is used

Ever since school, everyone has learned a simple rule that the word that begins a sentence is always written with a capital letter. But not only in this case, the use of capital letters becomes appropriate.

There are other cases in which it is necessary to capitalize a word.

1. Of course, each new sentence should begin with a capital (capital) letter , but there are some exceptions.

Note 1. In poetic works, each verse begins with a capital letter, regardless of the punctuation mark with which the previous line ended:
Hurry up to cure the cat's paw
Buy balloons!

And immediately people crowded on the road -
Noisy, and screaming, and looking at the cat.
And the cat partly walks along the road,
Partly flies smoothly through the air! (D. Harms, "Amazing Cat")

Note 2. If an ellipsis is used in a sentence, indicating discontinuity in speech, then after it words should be written with a small letter:

And I have this week ... that .... son died. (A. Chekhov)

Note 3. A capital letter is not used even if after a direct speech ending with any punctuation mark, except for a period, the words of the author follow:

— Quiet! Do not scream! he told me.
"Maester Cressen, they've come to visit us," Pylos said softly, as if not wanting to intrude on the old man's gloomy thoughts. (George Martin, Clash of Kings)

2. If at the beginning of a sentence there is an exclamation or an interjection with an exclamation mark, then after them the sentence is written with a capital letter.

However, if an interjection with an exclamation point is used in the middle of a sentence, then the word following it is capitalized. For example:

Ah! What glorious weather today!
I wanted to move the vase, but she ah! and fell!

3. A colon is followed by a capital letter only if:

a) This is followed by direct speech. For example:

After thinking for a moment, the brother replied, “No”;

b) What follows is a quotation, which is a sentence in itself.

However, if a quotation is entered as a continuation of a sentence, then it starts with a lowercase letter.

c) This is followed by a list of rubrics, each beginning with a new paragraph and ending with a period.

4. All proper names are always capitalized , including nicknames, names of geographical objects, cities, countries, rivers, villages, republics, states, etc. absolutely all titles of works, periodicals are also capitalized , programs, enterprises, shops, clubs, establishments of various kinds, etc. However, unlike the first group of proper names, the second names are always enclosed in quotation marks. For example:

Leonid Petrovich, Nikitina, Novosibirsk, Ob, Planovy settlement, Sharik (dog's nickname), Crybaby (person's nickname), Murka, Russian Federation, Baikal, Lake Teletskoye, Altai Republic, Alps, America, etc.;
“Trud” newspaper, “Otdykh” club, “So far everyone is at home” program, “Start” film, “Girl with Peaches” painting, “Pyaterochka” shop, “Garden of Eden” cafe, etc.

Note 1. The names of people who were previously individual, but in this context are used with a touch of contempt as a generic concept, are written with a small letter, for example: Judas of the modern world.

Note 2. Names of objects or phenomena that originate from proper names are written with a lowercase letter.

Note 3. Titles, ranks, positions - all this is written with a small letter: Academician Korolev, General Ivanov, Count Nulin.

Note 4. However, the names of the highest honorary positions are written in capital letters: Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labor, Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of the Soviet Union.

5. The following groups of adjectives are written with a capital letter:

a) Being possessive names and denoting the belonging of a particular thing to a particular person:

Vanina bag, Dalev dictionary.

b) Equal in meaning to the expression “in memory of such and such”, “in honor of such and such”, “name of such and such”:

Pushkin readings.

Note 1. Capitalized:

0003

Lermontov style, Suvorov tactics, X-ray room, etc.

b) possessive adjectives denoting full ownership. But having in its composition the suffixes "-ovsk-", "-evsk-", "-insk-":

Tolstoy's estate, Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons", etc.

Note 2. Adverbs formed from names of proper people are always capitalized.

6. Adjectives that are part of individual names of geographical objects are capitalized , in the following cases:

a) If they are part of complex geographical names: Novosibirsk region;

b) If they are attached to a person's name as a nickname: Dmitry Donskoy, Alexander Nevsky.

7. The names of historical eras and periods, events and phenomena, documents and papers, works of art and other material cultural monuments are written with a capital letter.

These include the following groups:

a) Nouns that have become proper names: October, Renaissance, Renaissance, Depression,

b) Combinations of an adjective with a noun: Peter's reform, Nikolaev's decree, the Treaty of Versailles, the Laurentian Chronicle.

c) Any other combination of nouns and adjectives.

8. The names of public holidays and significant dates are written with a capital letter. However, the names of religious holidays and fasts of all religions are written with a lowercase letter.

9. All words in the names of the supreme organizations and institutions of the USSR are capitalized , except for official words and the word "party". For example:

Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
All-Union Leninist Communist Youth Union.
Supreme Soviet of the USSR (RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR and other republics).
Council of the Union.
Council of Nationalities.
Council of Ministers of the USSR (RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR and other republics).
Supreme Court of the USSR.
All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions.

All words in the names of international organizations are also capitalized: World Peace Council, United Nations, etc.

10. In the names of ministries and main state administrative apparatuses , only the first word and proper names included in them are capitalized. The same rule applies to large-scale cultural organizations:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for new technology.
USSR Academy of Sciences.
Main Publishing Department of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR. In the full official names of Soviet institutions of local importance, higher educational institutions, entertainment enterprises, industrial and trade organizations, etc., the first word and proper names included in the name are capitalized, for example:
Council of Workers' Deputies.
Yaroslavl Regional Executive Committee of the Soviets of Working People's Deputies.
Lenin Moscow State Pedagogical Institute.
Kuibyshev State Opera and Ballet Theatre.
Pyatnitsky Russian Folk Choir.

The same rules apply to the names of foreign organizations and associations of similar significance and scale.

11. Official party names are capitalized in the event that they do not begin with the word "party":

party of the Earth, Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Unity Party.

12. In a special stylistic context, in campaign appeals and texts , in texts with a patriotic content, such words as “motherland”, “man”, “freedom”, “conscience”, “equality”, “brotherhood”, etc. d. may be capitalized.

Meaning, Definition, Suggestions . What is initial capital letters

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Examples

The meaning of the word "INITIAL"

Being the beginning of something, characteristic of the beginning.

See all meanings of the word INITIAL

Meaning of the word «CAPITAL»

See all meanings of the word «CAPITAL»

Meaning of the word «LETTER»

Sign of the alphabet.

See all meanings of LETTER

Sentences with "initial caps"

The standard style for other varieties of headings was initial caps on almost all words.
Do not use initial capital letters in a full term that is a general noun just because capital letters are used in its abbreviation.
Other results
The chronologically older form would have been initial caps, but uniform capitalization of nouns is a dead tradition.
The first letter of each psalm is capitalized and, as is often the case, the initial words of psalms 1, 51 and 101 are decorated with black, red and yellow.
If a capital letter or accent does not cover the whole word, then the beginning and end are marked with a hyphen.
The letter C should never be capitalized, and the letter P only at the beginning of a sentence.
For example, in the text above, we might recognize the rule that says that phrases with initial capital letters are more likely to be keyword phrases.
It's just a habit for me and others to use the initial capital letter as we write a lot.
This ensures that a proper name can have its initial capital letter checked against the non-capitalized Letter in the intersecting hint.
Do not write abbreviations that are pronounced as if they were only a word with an initial capital letter, for example, do not write UNESCO as Unesco or NASA as Nasa.
Non-capital letters at the beginning of the institution's name, regardless of the institution's preferred style.
Like all German nouns, the word is written with an initial capital letter.
Only in the 9th or 10th century BC. e. Greek began to use both uppercase and lowercase letters.

This page contains the definition (meaning) of the phrase / expression "initial capital letters", as well as synonyms, antonyms and sentences, if they are available in our database.