Cursive Q (Capital & Lowercase)

How to Write a Capital Q in Cursive

1. Start below the midline. Put your pencil on the left side of the letter, between the dashed midline and the baseline.
2. Climb up the left side. Draw upward in a smooth curve that leans to the right and reaches the top line.
3. Come down the right side. Round over the top and bring the stroke down the right side in a long curve, heading toward the bottom left of the letter.
4. Loop on the baseline. Just above the baseline, curve to the left, make a small loop that rests on the line and come back to the right through it.
5. Run out to the right. Finish with a gentle wave along the baseline. In a word, that stroke flows straight into the next letter.

How to Write a Lowercase q in Cursive

1. Start at the midline. Begin on the dashed midline, a little to the right. In a word, the joining stroke from the previous letter brings you here.
2. Make an oval like an a. Curve counterclockwise to the left, down to the baseline and back up to the midline, so you have a small closed oval.
3. Drop the stem. From the top right of the oval, pull a straight stroke down through the baseline to the dotted descender line.
4. Loop up on the right. At the bottom, turn and come back up on the right side of the stem in a narrow loop that closes at the baseline.
5. Flick out to the right. Finish with a short rising stroke just above the baseline that leads into the next letter, which is usually a u.

Common Mistakes With Cursive Q

Cursive Q causes more confusion than most letters because both forms look like something else. Watch for these.

• Writing the capital like a printed Q. In this style, the capital Q has no tail crossing an oval. It's a single stroke that ends in a loop and a wave on the baseline.
• Making the capital look exactly like a 2. The loop at the bottom is what separates them. Keep the loop and let the last stroke run on toward the next letter.
• Looping the lowercase q to the left. A loop that swings left turns the q into a g. The q's tail comes back up on the right side of the stem.
• A short tail. The lowercase q has to reach the descender line, or it starts to look like an a.
• Leaving the oval open. Close the top of the oval before you drop the stem, otherwise the q can read as a u with a tail.

How Cursive Q Connects to Other Letters

In the traditional style, the capital Q joins the next letter. The wave at the end of the letter runs along the baseline and turns into the first stroke of the following letter, as in Queen and Quinn.

The lowercase q also joins on both sides. The stroke from the previous letter rises to the midline and turns into the oval, then the loop below the line comes back to the baseline and flicks into the next letter. In squid and equal, the q sits between two joins, which makes them good practice words.

In English, q is nearly always followed by u, so the qu join is the one you'll write most. Practice it in quiet and quick until the flick from the q's loop runs smoothly into the u.

Copy and Paste Cursive Q Symbols

These are Unicode symbols, not real handwriting. They look like script and paste into most apps, but each symbol is a separate character, so they won't link up the way handwriting does. Use them for names, bios and captions.

• 𝒬𝓊ℯℯ𝓃Copy
• 𝒬𝓊𝒾ℯ𝓉Copy
• 𝒬𝓊𝒾𝒸𝓀 𝒩ℴ𝓉ℯCopy
• 𝒬𝓊ℯ𝓈𝓉Copy

Words That Start With Q

Q is one of the least used letters in English, so a short list goes a long way. Almost every word here practices the qu join.

• Short words: quiz, quit, quack, quay, queue, quest, quilt, quite
• Longer words: question, quarter, quality, quantity, quickly, quietly, quarrel, queasy
• Q in the middle: squid, equal, square, liquid, squash, require, sequel, unique
• Names and places: Quinn, Queen, Quentin, Quincy, Quebec, Queens, Quito, Qatar

A few words skip the u after q, mostly names and words borrowed from other languages, like Qatar and Iraq. They're good practice for joining q to a different letter.