upper-case letter
noun
Simple meaning
One of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhperkaysluhterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈʌpɚˈkeɪslɛtɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
One of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis; capitals were kept in the upper half of the type case and so became known as upper-case letters"
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: One of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis; capitals were kept in the upper half of the type case and so became known as upper-case letters"
Used this way, upper-case letter is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.