x-height

[eks-hahyt]

noun

Typography.

1. the height of a lowercase x.

x-height

noun

1. printing the height of lower case letters of a typeface, without ascenders or descenders

Other Word Forms

• x-high adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of x-height¹

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

While it’s common to simply increase the point size to make text easier to read, Mr Stobberup says that readability is actually determined by x-height.

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The x-height is the height of most lowercase letters in the Latin alphabet, and makes up nearly all of the printed marks on a page.

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The x-height can be increased without enlarging all of the text.

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For many designers, increasing the x-height is key to increasing legibility .

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This has a larger x-height than, for instance, the popular typeface Garamond.

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