Lower case or lowercase?
lower case is a noun meaning “The minuscule or small letters (a, b, c, as opposed to the uppercase or capital…”; lowercase is an adjective meaning “In lower case”. Use lower case as a noun and lowercase as an adjective. lower case is written as two words and lowercase as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between lower case and lowercase?
| lower case | lowercase | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, adjective, verb | noun, adjective, verb |
| Meaning | The minuscule or small letters (a, b, c, as opposed to the uppercase or capital letters, A, B, C) | In lower case To convert (text) to lower case |
| Example | The strongest passwords are those which mix numbers and letters, upper case and lower case, and symbols | none recorded |
| Pronunciation | /ˈləʊ.ə(ɹ)ˌkeɪs/ | /ˈloʊ.ɚˌkeɪs/ /ˌləʊ.ə(ɹ)ˈkeɪs/ /ˈləʊ.ə(ɹ)ˌkeɪs/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 2 million words |
Sources: lower case and lowercase in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of lower case and lowercase
lower case
- 1
The minuscule or small letters (a, b, c, as opposed to the uppercase or capital letters, A, B, C)
The strongest passwords are those which mix numbers and letters, upper case and lower case, and symbols
- 2
Alternative spelling of lowercase
- 3
Alternative spelling of lowercase
lowercase
- 1
Alternative form of lower case
- 2
In lower case
- 3
To convert (text) to lower case
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, lower case or lowercase?
lower case is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; lowercase about once in every 2 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search lower case vs lowercase?
“lower case vs lowercase” is searched about 10 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“lowercase vs lower case”, “lower case or lowercase”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.