Uncapitalize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To change the initial letter of a word or text from uppercase to lowercase; to format text so that the first character is in small letters rather than capitalized; to convert capitalized beginnings into non-capital forms
2. The act of transforming the first character of a term from a capital to a small letter; to adjust text appearance by reducing uppercase at the start to lowercase; modifying text to remove initial capitalization
3. Altering the initial alphabetic character from uppercase to lowercase in any given word; changing text style to shift from capitalized start to lowercased; making headings or proper nouns start with a small letter instead of a capital one

Etymology: The word is simply "un-" attached to "capitalize," so its history is a matter of two parts meeting. "Capitalize" comes from "capital," the letter sense of which goes back to Latin "capitalis," meaning "of the head," from "caput," "head." Because the top or head of a letter was its chief form, the "capital" letter got its name, and "to capitalize" came to mean writing something with an initial capital. The prefix "un-" is an ordinary English reversing element, the same one found in "undo" and "unlock," so "uncapitalize" means to take away that capital letter and set the word back to lowercase. It is a transparent formation, built on the reversal of an existing verb rather than coined as a separate term.

Synonyms: lowercase, decapitalize

Antonyms: capitalize