Tail height
Also known as: descender height
Tail height is the distance between the bottom of the tail letters of a font and the bottom of the x-height or typesetting line. In other words, how far the tails of tail letters extend below the typesetting line.
The total of the size of sticks, tails and the x-height forms the corpus. A font with a relatively large tail height will have a relatively low x-height. Letters with fairly short canes and tails (and thus a relatively larger x-height) tend to look more spatial and legible.
For most fonts, tail height and stick height almost match. Large differences are rare. Therefore, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
