What is upper and lowercase

Upper-case letters Definition & Meaning

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

Save This Word!

Capital letters. (Compare lower-case letters.)

QUIZ

WILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS?

Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck!

Question 1 of 7

Fill in the blank: I can’t figure out _____ gave me this gift.

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

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 UPPER CASE LETTERS

What are 

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 

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 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 

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

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

What is the uppercase character on the keyboard

The first thing that falls into the hands of a computer user is a keyboard and a mouse. The ability to use various functions with the help of these attributes allows you to quickly solve tasks. If you ask a beginner what upper case is, he will probably point to the keys located at the top. In fact, this is far from being the case.

Contents of the article

• Understanding upper and lower case on the keyboard
• Where is the upper case
• Ways to switch case on the keyboard

What is the upper and lower case on the keyboard

These concepts have come down to us since the days of typewriters. When typing, the usual type of writing was performed in the standard position of the equipment, which was called the lower one, and capital letters were applied to the paper when the position of the printing rods was changed, by moving them to the upper position. It is this function that the keyboards of modern mobile and stationary printing devices are endowed with.

By means of the “Shift” functional transfer button from one mode to another, the PC user can switch to uppercase or uppercase letters when writing texts, depending on the content requirements. At the same time, the numbers indicate punctuation marks or other symbols that are used when printing documents. In other words, uppercase is a printing mode in which letters become uppercase and numbers change to symbols. The lower one is the usual image of numbers and letters.

Where is the uppercase

Two keys for switching from one print mode to another are located on the keyboard: one on the lower left, and the other on the right - also at the bottom. This is done for the convenience of fast typing. If the letter to be capitalized is on the right, then the left side is used. When switching, press simultaneously, first "Shift" and then the desired character. And when the desired character is located on the left - vice versa. If it is convenient for the user to press both keys with one hand, then he does just that, for example, to display a comma!

ATTENTION! The keyboard of some mobile devices may have only one "Shift" key. This is due to the compact size of office equipment.

The ease of use of the upper mode allows you to quickly switch the function of the desired symbol from one position to another. In addition, on the left, above the "Shift" button, there is a key labeled "Caps Lock", which has the same functionality, but a different principle of operation.

Keyboard shifting methods

When typing texts, two switching modes are used:

• short-term;
• long.

The first of the listed methods switches the keyboard only at the moment of pressing the "Shift" key. As soon as the user releases it, printing continues in the normal mode - in capital letters.

The second method allows, after pressing the "Caps Lock" button, to change to uppercase and type capital letters until there is no need to use them. A separate keyboard indicator lights up when this mode is enabled and goes out only when the specified key is pressed again, which confirms the transition to uppercase symbols.

IMPORTANT! When "Caps Lock" is on, using the "Shift" button will have the opposite effect: when pressed, normal characters, and when released, capital letters.

Long mode is used when writing headings or emphasizing article titles.

The ability to quickly change from one case to another allows PC users to easily type the required texts by quickly inserting the necessary characters and capital letters.

What is upper and lower case on the keyboard?

When first starting out with the keyboard, novice users often have the following question: “What are upper and lower case on the keyboard?” It turns out that everything is very simple. The upper case means that capital letters are currently being entered from the keyboard, and the lower case, respectively, lower case. That is, each sentence begins with a capital letter. We use upper case for this. The rest of the sentence is "small" letters, that is, lowercase is used. This is the answer to the question of what is upper and lower case on the keyboard. There are various ways to switch between these input modes, which will be discussed next.

Momentary switching

Now we know what upper and lower case are on the keyboard. Let's deal with the main ways to switch between "large" and "small" letters. There is a momentary and permanent switching. Another way is programmatically implemented in office software. It will also be considered in the framework of this material. Let's start with the short term. Each computer keyboard has a "Shift" key (some of them may have an up arrow instead of an inscription). If capital letters are currently being entered, then pressing this key in combination with any text character will make it appear in lower case, and vice versa. This method is convenient to use at the beginning of a sentence. That is, they entered an uppercase character, and then everything is typed already in lowercase format.

Long dialing

The upper and lower case of the keyboard can be switched by another method. For these purposes, there is a special key "Caps Lock". It is usually located on the far left row of the keyboard between the Tab and Shift keys. When you press it, there is a constant change of case. To determine the current mode, look at the LED on the keyboard with exactly the same inscription - “Caps Lock”. If it is lit, it means that uppercase letters are being entered, otherwise lowercase. To switch from one mode to another, press this key again. This method is best used when you need to constantly type text in one format (for example, only uppercase characters), and switching between input formats, if any, does not happen so often.

For office applications

Another way to change uppercase and lowercase characters is implemented in the Microsoft office suite. Most often it is used in the word processor "Word". During the input process, did you accidentally forget to switch from large letters to small letters or vice versa? Upper and lower case characters in this case can be changed as follows.

Learn more

• 
  Phonic sound of alphabets
• 
  List of creative adjectives
• 
  During reading activity
• 
  Special kids shapes and colors
• 
  Teaching to child
• 
  Things to teach a baby
• 
  Student reading level chart
• 
  Match uppercase and lowercase letters
• 
  Prepositions for kids
• 
  Letter sound activities for kindergarten
• 
  Danny and the dinosaurs