A cursive capital U starts with a small forward hook at the top line, slants down to a rounded bottom, climbs back to the top line and retraces down before leaving with an undercurve. A lowercase cursive u is two undercurves and two slant strokes at midline height, with pointed tops and rounded bottoms, then an undercurve to exit.
How to write U in cursive, step by step
The steps follow a Zaner-Bloser-style school cursive. Both forms of U use the same down-and-up rhythm, so the main skill is keeping the two halves the same width and the same slant.
Capital U
Start a little below the top line. Curve forward and up to touch the top line, like the hook that opens a capital N or M.
Slant down to the baseline and round the bottom as you reach it.
Undercurve back up to the top line on the right.
Retrace straight down that right side to the baseline.
Exit with an undercurve. The capital U joins the next letter.
The hook at the start is small. If it grows into a big loop, the capital starts to look like a script V with a tail, and the right side has to stretch to match it.
Lowercase u
Start at the baseline, or at the end of the previous letter, and undercurve up to the midline.
Slant down to the baseline.
Undercurve up to the midline again.
Slant down to the baseline, retracing the top of the second stroke so the point stays sharp.
Finish with an undercurve.
The tops of a u are points and the bottoms are curves. That is the reverse of an n, where the tops are rounded humps and the bottoms are points. Writing a row of "unun" is a good way to feel the difference.
12 ways to write U
U changes less between styles than most capitals, because almost every hand keeps the cup shape. What changes is the right stroke. Copperplate and Spencerian shade the downstrokes and often stop the right side with a squared or rounded foot. Gothic builds U from two broad vertical strokes joined by a hairline. Italic keeps the cup narrow and leaning, and the flourished capital usually adds a long entry curve that swings in from the left.
For a monogram, the brush and signature versions give U enough weight to sit next to wider letters such as M or W without looking thin.
Common mistakes with U
the tops are rounded into humps and the bottoms pointed, so the u reads as an n
the slant strokes don't retrace their undercurves, leaving small loops so the u reads as ee
the two halves are spaced too far apart and read as an undotted ii
the second half is narrower or more upright than the first, so the cups don't match
Most of these come from writing the u too fast. When the points round off and the bottoms sharpen, a u stops being a u, even if every stroke is in the right place.
Joining U to other letters
Lowercase u is one of the easiest letters to join in both directions. It arrives with an undercurve and leaves with an undercurve, so it slots between most letters without a change of direction. "Un", "ut" and "ul" flow straight off the exit stroke. "Us" and "ur" need the exit to rise a little above the midline to make the s's point and the r's shoulder. After "qu", the u carries the join from the q's exit, so keep the q's tail short or the u will start too far to the right.
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Un
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Us
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Ur
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Ut
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Ul
Hand-lettered exemplar coming soon
Um
Practice U
Warm up with the first row of the U sheet: undercurves linked into a chain, which is the motion behind the whole letter. Below it are rows for tracing the capital, the lowercase and each join, sized for US Letter or A4.
Count the points at the top. A u has two, one at the start of each slant stroke, and ends with an undercurve from the baseline. A v has only one rounded cup and ends at the midline with a small checkstroke instead of dropping back to the baseline. If a word like "have" keeps reading as "haue", the v is missing its checkstroke. The letter V page covers the checkstroke in detail.
Why does my cursive u look like "ii" or "ee"?
An undotted u is really two i-strokes joined together, so the shape itself is fine. It reads as "ii" when the two halves are spaced too far apart, and as "ee" when the slant strokes do not retrace their undercurves and leave little loops at the top. Keep the halves close, retrace each point, and the letter reads as one unit.
Does the cursive capital U connect to the next letter?
Yes. In Zaner-Bloser-style cursive the capital U ends with the same undercurve as the lowercase u, so it joins directly into words like "Under" and "Utah". This is one of the main differences between U and V: the capital V stops at the top line and stands on its own.
Were U and V once the same letter?
Yes. Latin used a single letter, written as V in inscriptions, for both the vowel sound of U and the consonant sound of V. Scribes writing quickly rounded the bottom, which gave the u shape. For centuries printers used v at the start of a word and u in the middle, regardless of sound. The modern split, with U as the vowel and V as the consonant, only settled in English in the 1600s and 1700s.
