Just like people, fonts come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and personalities. And, just like people, they have distinct parts with specific names: face, shoulder, body, feet. When talking about the elements that make up individual letters, designers are referring to the typeface's anatomy.

The baseline is the line on which a character sits.

The cap height is the distance from the baseline to the top of uppercase letters like “H” and “A.”

The distance between the baseline and the top of a lowercase letter is the x-height. It is called the x-height because it is the height of a lowercase “x.” The top of the x-height is called the meanline.

The ascender is the part of the font that extends above the meanline. An example of this would be the top stroke of a lowercase “b”.

The part of the font that extends below the baseline is called a descender. You can see this in the bottom stroke of a lowercase “g”.