Lowercasing

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. Reducing the capitalization of letters in a text or phrase
2. altering a word so that all characters are in small letters rather than capitalized
3. creating a style of writing that emphasizes lowercase characters for aesthetic or functional purposes

Etymology: "Lowercasing" is the present participle and gerund of "lowercase", and the verb's history begins with a phrase rather than a single word. "Lower case" was the name for the small letters in a printer's type case, which were stored in the lower of the two drawers that held the type, while capitals sat in the upper one. The phrase was an adjective modifying a noun, so "lower case letters" meant the letters from that lower drawer. When "lower case" was used as a modifier in front of another noun, it was later joined into a single word or hyphenated. This made its grammatical role clearer and simpler, as a sort of chunking of the phrase into one unit. Once it was compressed this way, "lowercase" could be turned into a verb, so that setting text in small letters became "lowercasing" it. The verb's meaning follows the printing trade, where the lower drawer gave the small letters their name.

Synonyms: downcasing

Antonyms: uppercasing, capitalizing