#anatomyoftype

Tail A descending stroke, often decorative. . (About) In typography, the descending, often decorative stroke on the letter Q or the descending, often curved diagonal stroke on K or R is the tail. The descender on g, j, p, q, and y are also called tails. . (Merriam-Webster) The back, last, lower, or inferior part of something. #anatomyoftype #typeglossary #typography #tail

Teardrop Terminal The teardropped ends of strokes in letters of some typefaces. #anatomyoftype #typeglossary #typography #teardropterminal

Terminal The end of a stroke that does not include a serif. . (About) In typography, the terminal is a type of curve. Many sources consider a terminal to be just the end (straight or curved) of any stroke that doesn’t include a serif (which can include serif fonts, such as the little stroke at the end of “n” as shown in the illustration). Some curved bits of tails, links, ears, and loops are considered terminals using the broader definition (see the Microsoft Typography site for further explanation). Ball terminal is a combination of a dot (tail dot) or circular stroke and the curved bit (hook) at the end of some tails and the end of some arms (a, c, f). Beak terminal refers to the sharp spur or beak at the end of a letterform’s arm and the curved bit (terminal) between the beak and the arm. . (Merriam-Webster) Growing at the end of a branch or stem. #anatomyoftype #typeglossary #typography #terminal

Tittle A small distinguishing mark, such as an diacritic on a lowercase i or j. Also known as a Dot. . (Merriam-Webster) A point or small sign used as a diacritical mark in writing or printing. #anatomyoftype #typeglossary #typography #title

Uppercase A letter or group of letters of the size and form generally used to begin sentences and proper nouns. Also known as "capital letters". . (Wikipedia) Capital letters or majuscules are the larger of two type faces in a script. In the Roman alphabet they are A, B, C, D, etc. They are also called capitals (caps) or upper case (uppercase). The latter name comes from the antique age of setting type for printing presses, when printers kept the type for these letters in the upper drawers of a desk or in the upper type case, while keeping the type for the more frequently-used smaller letters in the lower type case. This practice could date back to Johannes Gutenberg, but nobody really knows. Capital and minuscule letters are differentiated in the Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, and Coptic alphabets. Many other writing systems (such as those used in the Georgian language, Glagolitic, Arabic, Hebrew, and Devanagari) make no distinction between capital and lowercase letters a system called unicase. Indeed, even European languages, except for Ancient Greek did not make this distinction before about the year 1300. Both "majuscule" and "minuscule" letters existed, but the printing press had not been invented, yet, and a given handwritten document could use either one size/style or the other. However, before about 1700 literacy was very low in Europe and the Americas, hence even handwriting was not used or understood by more than about one percent of people. Therefore, there was not any motivation to use both upper case and lower case letters in the same document: all documents were for the use of a few scholars, anyway. . (Merriam-Webster) From the compositor's practice of keeping capital letters in the upper of a pair of type cases. #anatomyoftype #typeglossary #typography #uppercase

Vertex The outside point at the bottom or top of a character where two strokes meet. . (Merriam-Webster) A point (as of an angle, polygon, polyhedron, graph, or network) that terminates a line or curve or comprises the intersection of two or more lines or curves. #anatomyoftype #typeglossary #typography #vertex

x-Height The height of lowercase letters reach based on height of lowercase x; does not include ascenders or descenders. . (About) In typography, x-height is the distance between the baseline of a line of type and tops of the main body of lower case letters (i.e. excluding ascenders or descenders). The x-height is a factor in typeface identification and readability. Typefaces with very large x-height relative to the total height of the font have shorter ascenders and descenders and thus less white space between lines of type. Sans Serif typefaces typically have large x-heights. In typefaces with small x-heights, other letter parts such as ascenders and descenders may become more visually noticeable. Typefaces with large x-heights may appear darker, heavier, crowded, and more difficult to read at body copy sizes. If changing to a typeface with a smaller x-height is not an option, open up the lines of type by adding more leading (line spacing), and not using fully justified alignment. . (Wikipedia) In typography, the x-height or corpus size refers to the distance between the baseline and the mean line in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the letter x in the font (the source of the term), as well as the u, v, w, and z. (Curved letters such as a, c, e, m, n, o, r and s tend to exceed the x-height slightly, due to overshoot.) However, in modern typography, the x-height is simply a design characteristic of the font, and while an x is usually exactly one x-height in height, in some more decorative or script designs, this may not always be the case. . (Merriam-Webster) The height of a lowercase x used to represent the height of the main body of a lowercase letter. #anatomyoftype #typeglossary #typography #xheight