The lowercase (or minuscule) is the smaller form of alphabet letters, as opposed to the uppercase (or capitals).

HISTORY

The word ending with -case is a legacy from metal type printing, when types (metal pieces) were sorted by glyphs into wooden drawers containing cases, one for types of each glyph. Capitals were in the cases of the upper section of the drawer, and lowercase letters were on the bottom.

Even though they appeared later than their uppercase ‘parents’, lowercase letters changed through much more iterations. Some of these evolutions were influenced by history (inventions of tools), cultures (preference of a certain style) and geography (influence between nearby cultures).