the.com/descender
The part of a letter that dares to go below the line, like j, g, y.
means The portion of a lowercase letter (like j, g, p, q, or y) that drops below the baseline where the rest of the letters stand.
from Straightforward Latin ancestry: 'descendere' means 'to climb down,' built from 'de-' (down) plus 'scandere' (to climb) — the same root that gives us 'ascend' and 'scale.' Typographers borrowed the word directly to name the tails of letters that refuse to stay on the line, descending into the space below like a climber heading downhill.
- typography term
- opposite of ascender, think b, d, h
- affects line spacing
- too many descenders crowd the line below
- font personality
- long descenders make a typeface feel elegant or edgy