small letter
A character that was once stored in the bottom half of a compositor's typecase.
small letter: lowercase type from the bottom case
A small letter is any lowercase character in a font of metal type, as opposed to a capital letter or uppercase. In letterpress printing, these characters were physically stored in the lower compartment of a divided wooden typecase, hence the term "lowercase"; capitals occupied the upper case. A small letter occupies less visual space than its capital counterpart and serves the standard function of initial letters in the middle of words, sentence continuations, and proper nouns after their first letter.
In metal type founding, small letters are cast as individual sorts with a height-to-paper of 0.918 inches (the standard "type height"), matching capitals exactly. The actual face of the character sits on the body of the sort, and the depth from face to back varies with the type size and weight. Most fonts include small letters in the standard character set: a through z, plus accented variants like e-acute or o-umlaut depending on the face design and the printer's intended language or specialization.
Case arrangement and workflow
The lower case contained far more compartments than the upper case because small letters appear far more frequently in printed text. A compositor pulling type by hand would reach downward more often than upward, and the arrangement of letters in the lower case reflected frequency of use: e, t, a, o, i, n occupied prime positions nearest the compositor's hand, while q, x, z sat in less accessible corners. This spatial logic persisted across foundries and remained standard well into the twentieth century.
Small letters are essential to the appearance of any printed page in Latin-script languages. Their proportions, weight, and x-height (the height of the body of a lowercase x, excluding ascenders and descenders) determine the color and readability of a text block far more than capitals do. A poorly proportioned small letter ruins a typeface; a well-cut small letter, paired with precise spacing and correct leading, produces text that reads effortlessly.
With the rise of phototype and digital composition, the terms uppercase and lowercase persist even though no physical case remains. The distinction between capital and small letter has become purely typographic rather than material, yet the vocabulary survives unchanged in contemporary design and publishing.