lower casen.adj.
/ˌləʊə ˈkeɪs/, U.S. /ˌloʊər ˈkeɪs/ A. n.
1. Printing. One of the two type cases used by a compositor in setting type, typically containing the small letters, spaces, quadrats, and punctuation marks, and placed below the upper case on the compositor's frame. Cf. case n.2 6a. Now historical.
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society > communication > printing > composing equipment > [noun] > case for type > types of case
lower case1683
music case1841
job case1894
1683 J. Moxon Mech. Exercises II. 19 The Upper Case and the Lower-Case are of an equal length, breadth and depth.
1688 R. Holme Acad. Armory iii. iii. 116/2 Case or Cases, are the Boxes in which each Letter is put, called the Upper Case, and the Lower Case; one holding the Capitals, the other the small Letters.
1797 Encycl. Brit. VII. 383/2 The letters of the lower case.
1890 Amer. Bookmaker Apr. 102/1 An ingenious correspondent suggested some three years ago a new arrangement of the lower case.
1904 T. L. De Vinne Mod. Methods Bk. Composition i. 11 The lower case has fifty four boxes, which contain the lower-case characters, figures, points, spaces, and quadrats.
1994 D. C. Greetham Textual Scholarship (new ed.) iii. 114 The compartment towards the center of the lower case contained those letters needed most often.
2. Typography. The letters or type found in the compositor's lower case (see sense A. 1); esp. the small letters. In later use more generally, with reference to any form of text: small letters as opposed to capital letters (upper case); the case in which small letters are written, printed, or otherwise displayed (cf. case n.2 6b, minuscule n. 2). Frequently in in lower case.
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1683 J. Moxon Mech. Exercises II. 221 If this Word of great Emphasis be Set in the Lower Case, yet he Sets the first Letter a Capital.
1784 T. Astle Origin & Progress Writing ix. 225 Printers divide a fount of letters into two classes, namely, the upper-case and the lower-case.
1817 Lit. Gaz. 15 Feb. 53/2 One alphabet will not be sufficient for a modern title page, but upper case and lower case, with the whole train of pica and long primer, must be pressed into the service of modern men of Letters!
1898 Writer Mar. 39/1 Proper nouns, when they become common nouns or adjectives, should be written in lower case.
1911 Inland Printer Nov. 235/2 The line of capitals often gives a sort of dignity to the top of the advertisement, which is lacking when lower-case is used.
1974 M. Clifford Encycl. Home Wiring & Electr. i. 6 The letter M, either capitalized or in lower case, is the abbreviation for mili-.
2011 S. MacBride Shatter Bones (2012) 100 A vague black-and-green blob with the word ‘sooty’ printed beside it in scruffy lower-case.
B. adj.
1. Typography. Usually with hyphen or as one word. Designating a small, as opposed to capital, letter (originally one taken from the compositor's lower case); printed, written, or otherwise displayed in such letters, or with an initial letter of this kind. Cf. minuscule adj. 1a, small adj. 10a.
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society > communication > printing > printed matter > printed character(s) > [adjective] > lower-case or small
lower case1683
minuscule1704
1683 J. Moxon Mech. Exercises II. 124 The Stem, and other Fat Stroaks of Lower-Case Roman.
1688 R. Holme Acad. Armory iii. iii. 116/1 If lower Case Letters be set instead of Capitals, he dashes them underneath or upon the Letter and Writs in the Margin Cap.
1770 P. Luckombe Conc. Hist. Printing 379 Neither do we drown the beauty of Roman Lower-case Sorts by putting every Substantive with a Capital; but only such as are Proper names.
1854 T. Ford Compositor's Handbk. ii. i. 28 The lower case alphabet.
1888 C. T. Jacobi Printers' Vocab. 129 Spanish n, a capital or lower case n with a curly accent, thus—ñ.
1890 W. Morris in J. W. Mackail Life W. Morris (1899) II. 251 The type is getting on: I have all the lower-case letters (26).
1900 T. L. De Vinne Pract. Typogr. 327 Another style of runic is made with all lower-case characters, but of slightly expanded form.
1953 S. K. Langer Introd. Symbolic Logic (ed. 2) 341 I shall henceforth use lower-case italics.
1988 Amer. Jrnl. Psychol. 101 112 Typed uppercase versus typed lowercase words.
2010 Nature 29 Apr. 1261/3 Do use strong passwords..that include both upper- and lower-case letters.
2. figurative. Chiefly U.S. Small in size or importance; insignificant, inconsequential. Cf. minuscule adj. 2.
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the mind > attention and judgement > importance > unimportance > [adjective] > low or subordinate
wokec897
lessOE
lesserc1225
secondary1386
lowerc1390
subalternate?a1425
subsidiary1603
pedaneous1617
subordinate1620
undergraduate1655
subdominant1826
unlofty1869
lower case1917
1917 Alumni Q. (Univ. Illinois) 1 Mar. 242/1 The other young man is still rather lower-case—two and one-half years old.
1921 C. Wells Ptomaine Street vi. 53 They're lower-case people—tin pergola and pebble garden sort.
1968 Brazosport Facts (Freeport, Texas) 9 Dec. 2/6 He is short, squat, lipless, a lower case soldier in the Cosa Nostra.
1983 Los Angeles Times 20 July g6/3 She slides below a slick surface to lower-case people whose lives touch each other and touch the reader, too.
2004 E. Conlon Blue Blood viii. 280 His lowercase moustache, comb-over, and rumpled-short-sleeved-shirt-and-tie combination gave him the look of a back-office supervisor.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2013; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.adj.1683