Initial

In a written or published work, an initial or drop cap is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is comes from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning. An initial is often several lines in height and in older books or manuscripts. In some cases a name or title can be long so the initials would shorten them.

Examples include: JFK, FDR, AOC, TDK, NYC, USA, KUWTK, EU, etc.

Initial Media

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  A historiated illuminated initial

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  A set of sixteenth-century initial capitals

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  Greek biblical text from Papyrus 46, of c. 200, with no initials, punctuation, and barely spaces between words

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  5th century Codex Alexandrinus with initials in left margin

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  Leaf from a Coptic manuscript, 6th-14th century, Metropolitan museum of Art, New-York

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  "Diminuendo" effect in the first letters after this initial from the Cathach of St. Columba (Irish, 7th century)

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  One of thousands of smaller decorated initials from the Book of Kells

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  In principio from the start of the Gospel of John, 9th century

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  Illuminated Georgian letter "D" from the Mokvi Gospels

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  Large initial L from a Romanesque Bible

Related pages

• Abbreviation

Other websites

• Typolis.de
• Types of illuminated initials in the Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture
• Ornamento Ornamento contains close to a quarter of a million ornate letters, ornaments, borders, musical notation, diagrams, and illustrations drawn from Iberian print before 1701.
• Initials and Ornaments by Book Historian on Flickr.com
• Alphabets & Letters at Reusableart.com