upper-case letter
1
1.5
- noun
- /ˈʌpərˌkeɪs ˈlɛtər/
:
letra mayúscula
- Please write your name using an uppercase letter at the beginning.
- uppercase and lowercase letters
Examples
-
On small paper plates, I drew a treble clef and uppercase letters of the musical alphabet.
Academic text (2006) -
I wrote the note names in bold uppercase letters.
Academic text (2006) -
Oh, and we want to make it a policy for the site: users are not allowed to use uppercase letters either.
Blog text (13) -
Use lower- and uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols.
Academic text (2006) -
There are dozens, probably hundreds, of instances of uppercase letters on the site.
Blog text (13) -
-- Do use three of the following: numbers, uppercase letters, lowercase letters, or special characters.
Academic text (2006) -
The case of the letters alternated for each letter, with half the words beginning with an uppercase letter.
Academic text (2002) -
Client: "We want every single uppercase letter removed from the site and replaced with all lowercase."
Blog text (13) -
To reinforce the use of uppercase letters, the teacher uses items listed in class spelling bees.
Academic text (1990) -
Uppercase words were found to be more reliably recognized under lateral presentation than lowercase words, presumably due to the greater size and clarity of uppercase letters compared to lowercase letters.
Academic text (2002)
Synonyms
64
1.2
A large letter used at the start of names or sentences
4
2.2
A large letter used at the start of names or sentences
4
1.0
A large letter that you use at the start of a sentence or name
A large capital letter used at the start of names or sentences
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and compositionally derivable from 'uppercase' (a capital letter form) combined with 'letter' (a written symbol); a learner who knows both words will understand this refers to a capital letter. This modifier+noun pattern is a straightforward, cross-linguistically common formation, so the expression is immediately comprehensible to B1 learners.
Etymology
Upper-case letter comes from old printing shops. Printers kept the big letters in the upper part of a wooden case, so upper-case became the name for the 'capital' letters we use at the start of names and sentences.