drop cap

American

[drahp kap] / ˈdrɑp ˌkæp /

noun

Typography. a capital letter at the beginning of a paragraph, usually itself at the start of a chapter in a book, which is larger than the surrounding text and takes up more than one line of vertical space.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

drop caps

plural

Example Sentences

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drop cap

The original book opened with an ornamental drop cap on the first sentence; the transcriber has added similar drop caps at the commencement of each chapter to make presentation consistent.

From A Son of the Immortals by Howard Chandler Christy

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023