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Glite Dictionary
🧗 A climber 🔤 Letter's upper part
ascender

ascender

1 8.1
The top part of a small letter that rises above most other small letters
  • noun
  • /əˈsɛndər/
  • Specialized
translation icon : ascendente
  • When writing in cursive, the ascender in the letter 'b' creates a beautiful loop.

Examples

  • In the word 'hills', the ascender of the letter 'h' rises above the other lowercase letters.

  • From your screenshot, the descender is currently set to -300, and the glyph itself seems to reach a height of 1000, which in a font with a UPM of 1000 would be 300 more than the standard ascender height (which should equal 1000).

    Blog text (27)

  • Changed hhea.Ascender and hhea.Descender values as a result of the OS/2 usWin changes.

    Blog text (23)

  • That the glyphs have apparently been moved up in this display will most likely be the result of how the metrics are set up, specifically the ascender and descender measurements relative to the overall size of the glyph.

    Blog text (27)

  • The typographer explained how the ascender of the letter 'd' influences the overall design of the font.

Surface Forms

ascender singular
ascenders plural

Morphology

ascender = ascend (semi-transparent) = ascend + er

The typographic sense ('part that rises above the x-height') is derived metaphorically from 'ascend' + '-er', so the relationship is clear but specialized.

Etymology

Ascender comes from the Latin root ascendere, seen in the English word ascend, meaning 'to climb', and in writing an ascender is the part of a small letter that 'climbs' above the main body, which is why tall parts of letters like 'b' or 'h' are called ascenders.