majuscula

Ma juscula is a term used in paleography and typography to refer to the uppercase forms of the Latin script. In scholarly descriptions, majuscula (feminine form ma j uscula) denotes the larger, capital letters as opposed to minuscule, the lowercase forms. The distinction between majuscule and minuscule is both a matter of letter shape and historical writing practice, and it is common in discussions of medieval and classical scripts.

Historically, majuscule refers to the large, often formal letterforms that appear in inscriptions and early manuscript traditions. Classical Latin inscriptions used capitalis monumentalis and related capitalis styles, which are examples of majuscule writing. With the rise of book production in the medieval and early modern periods, a more compact and rounded minuscule scripts developed, giving rise to named styles such as Caroline minuscule and Insular minuscule. The term majuscula, in contrast, helps scholars distinguish earlier, larger capital forms from later lowercase scripts.

In modern typography and computational contexts, majuscules (uppercase letters) include the Latin capital letters A through Z and are used for initials, acronyms, and emphasis. The term ma j uscula remains primarily a scholarly descriptor, while “uppercase” or “capital letters” are the common everyday terms in English. See also majuscule and minuscule for related concepts in script analysis.