low·er·case

(lō′ər-kās′)

adj.

Of, printed, or formatted in lowercase letters.

tr.v. lower·cased, lower·cas·ing, lower·cas·es

To put (type or text) in lowercase letters.

low′er·case′ n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

low′er case′

(ˈloʊ ər)
n.

See under case ² (def. 8).

[1675–85]

low•er•case

(ˈloʊ ərˈkeɪs)

adj., v. -cased, -cas•ing,
n. adj.

1. (of an alphabetical letter) of a particular form often different from and smaller than its corresponding capital letter, as a, b, q, r.

v.t.

2. to print or write with a lowercase letter or letters.

3. a lowercase letter.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	lowercase - the characters that were once kept in bottom half of a compositor's type case lower-case letter, minuscule, small letter grapheme, graphic symbol, character - a written symbol that is used to represent speech; "the Greek alphabet has 24 characters" capital letter, majuscule, uppercase, upper-case letter, capital - one of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis; "printers once kept the type for capitals and for small letters in separate cases; capitals were kept in the upper half of the type case and so became known as upper-case letters"
Adj.	1.	lowercase - relating to small (not capitalized) letters that were kept in the lower half of a compositor's type case; "lowercase letters; a and b and c etc" minuscular, minuscule - of or relating to a small cursive script developed from uncial; 7th to 9th centuries uppercase - relating to capital letters which were kept in the top half of a compositor's type case; "uppercase letters; X and Y and Z etc"

Translations

minuscule

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

What is the name of the dot above a lowercase 'i' or 'j'?

Quick Quiz

Thanks to recent Digital Advertising Alliance regulations, targeted ads now sport a little blue triangle with a lowercase "i," sometimes accompanied by the word "AdChoices." It links to a page describing how online behavioral advertising works and instructions on how to opt out.

How do you know you're being tracked?

On backgrounds of various colors, the projection on the left shows lines from two radical alphabet posters from the '70s, "The Black ABC's" and "The Alternative Alphabet for Big and Little People." Thus we read, for example, that "A is for Afro," "B is for Beauty," "F is for Freedom," "V is for Vote," "X is for extra-special," and "Y is for Yoga." The projection on the right only repeats the letter in question, both in capitals and lowercase, while "illustrating" the concept in question with film footage.

Lisa Oppenheim: Galerie Juliette Jongma

American Heritage Dictionary IV notes that "This trademark often occurs in lowercase and as a verb in print: 'Two young men quietly spackled and whitewashed the walls....

Beware spritely and hobgoblinic consistency; turn now to bosenmate, and cow testicles

* The authors of Chicago "have heard of structuralism and post-modernism (both lowercase) but (like Microsoft) do not recognize poststructuralism (this from one of Derrida's American publishers).

New edition of Chicago Manual of Style inspires Pulitzer Prize-winning author to pragmatic (or is that Pragmatic? *) philosophizing about writing

Most of us are guilty of it: We use lowercase letters and sparse punctuation throughout our e-mails with little regard for the beginnings and ends of sentences or even paragraphs.

Mind your e-mail manners

Now, engineers at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., have demonstrated a prototype battery to power miniature machines--and keep them powered for decades--that could be scaled down to fit inside the dot over a lowercase i.

Atomic battery power. (News & Notes)

The final segment of the document details reading benchmarks in ten categories: (1) attends and responds to print; (2) has sense of story; (3) exhibits developmentally appropriate oral language for communication purposes; (4) recognizes uppercase and lowercase letters; (5) uses knowledge of letter-sound relationships to manipulate sounds in the written word; (6) demonstrates phonemic awareness; (7) constructs meaning when responding to print; (8) creates a written form using various materials; (9) develops listening skills; and (10) develops and expands sight vocabulary.

Mississippi Kindergarten Guidelines. Fourth Edition

The author's name and the volume's title appear in lowercase letters on the spine of this book's dead-white cardboard cover, and indeed no capital letters occur throughout eiserne mimosen.

Eiserne mimosen

The researchers first charted blood-flow surges sparked by general visual processing and letter recognition during tests in which volunteers judged whether two sets of letter strings displayed the same pattern of upper- and lowercase letters.

Brain scans tag sexes as words apart

The commonly held belief that Cummings had his name legally changed to lowercase letters only is erroneous.

Cummings, E.E

Sometimes scientists use a smaller unit called a calorie (lowercase "c") to measure smaller amounts of energy.

Candy lite