Intypography andhandwriting, adescender is the portion of agrapheme that extends below thebaseline of afont.

For example, in the lettery, the descender is the "tail", or that portion of thediagonal line which lies below thev created by the two lines converging. In the letterp, it is the stem reaching down past theɒ.

In most fonts, descenders are reserved forlowercase characters such asg,j,q,p,y, and sometimesf. Some fonts, however, also use descenders for somenumerals (typically3,4,5,7, and9). Such numerals are calledold-style numerals. (Someitalic fonts, such asComputer Modern italic, put a descender on the numeral4 but not on any other numerals. Such fonts are not considered old-style.) Some fonts also use descenders for the tails on a few uppercase letters such asJ andQ.^[1]

The parts of characters that extend above thex-height of a font are calledascenders.^[2]

Descenders are often reduced in small-print typefaces for uses such as newspapers, directories or pocket Bibles to fit more text on a page. More radically, on 20 May 1802 Philip Rusher ofBanbury patented a newPatent Type with eliminated descenders and shortened ascenders.^[3][4][5][6] The type did not prove successful, nor did another use in 1852.^[7][8] The Art Nouveaudisplay typefaceHobo and headline typefacePermanent Headline which also eliminate descenders have both been somewhat popular since.^[9]

Some early computer displays (for example, theCompukit UK101) and printers (for example, the Commodore 4022^[10]) restricted the vertical spacing of characters so that there was no space for correct display of descenders. Instead, characters with descenders were displaced vertically upwards so that the bottom of the descender was aligned with thebaseline. Contemporary systems that did not have this restriction were described as supportingtrue descenders.

• The dictionary definition ofdescender at Wiktionary

• Typography

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• Short description matches Wikidata