It was adopted for use within internet relay chat (IRC) networks circa 1988 to label groups and topics. The pound sign (technically known as the octothorpe) is what # was called primarily in the United States. HTML Arrows is shared by Toptal Designers, the marketplace for hiring elite UI, UX, and Visual designers, along with top developer and finance talent. At least three orthographically distinct number signs from other languages are also assigned: On the standard US keyboard layout, the # symbol is ⇧ Shift+3.
In places like the UK, it still denotes pound sterling (£). a symbol (£) for “pound” or “pounds” as a monetary unit of the United Kingdom. J. W. Marley, "The Detection and Illustration of Forgery By Comparison of Handwriting", in, John Baugh, Robert Hass, Maxine H. Kingston, et al., "Octothorpe,", "You Asked Us: About the * and # on the New Phones,", HTML5 is the only version of HTML that has a named entity for the number sign, see, "Why is the symbol # called the hashtag in Twitter? [3] The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes, including the designation of an ordinal number and as a ligatured abbreviation for pounds avoirdupois – having been derived from the now-rare ℔. When # prefixes a number, it is read as "number". [45] Many computer and teleprinter codes (such as BS 4730 (the UK national variant of the ISO/IEC 646 character set) substituted '£' for '#' to make the British versions, thus it was common for the same binary code to display as # on US equipment and £ on British equipment. [8] Examples of it being used to indicate pounds exist at least as far back as 1850. HTML Arrows offers all the html symbol codes you need to simplify your site design. Ultimately, the symbol was reduced for clarity as an overlay of two horizontal strokes "=" across two slash-like strokes "//". As such, the # is generally called a … The abbreviations 'No. ', and '№' are used commonly and interchangeably. Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words? usage. “Epidemic” vs. “Pandemic” vs. “Endemic”: What Do These Terms Mean? £ symbol is easy on a UK keyboard but for other keyboards there’s no specific key for Pound. The term hash sign is found in South African writings from the late 1960s,[17] and from other non-North-American sources in the 1970s. ", "Facebook finally gets #hashtags - CNN.com", https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100141949, "A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English", "Pressing Matters: Touch-tone phones spark debate", "E.161 : Arrangement of digits, letters and symbols on telephones and other devices that can be used for gaining access to a telephone network", "Pronunciation guide for Unix - Bash - SS64.com", "The Hashtag: A History Deeper than Twitter", https://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html, https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/CR-html5-20140731/syntax.html#named-character-references, "HISOFT DEVPAC ZX Spectrum Programmer's Manual", "You'll Never Guess the Real Name for a Hashtag", Glossary of Medical Devices and Procedures: Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Definitions, "How to Format a Press Release for the Associated Press", "cp500_IBMInternational to Unicode table", "cp1026_IBMLatin5Turkish to Unicode table", "Emoji Symbols: Background Data—Background data for Proposal for Encoding Emoji Symbols", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Number_sign&oldid=984761909, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2017, Vague or ambiguous geographic scope from May 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2020, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2020, Articles lacking reliable references from September 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
('$' was not substituted due to obvious problems if an attempt was made to communicate monetary values).
in the early 1980s. Although used initially and most popularly on Twitter, hashtag use has extended to other social media sites.[23]. [16] a symbol (#) for “pound” or “pounds” as a unit of weight or mass: the symbol (#) used for various purposes. The currency code for Pounds is GBP, and the currency symbol is £. [20] This usage inspired[21] Chris Messina to propose a similar system to be used on Twitter to tag topics of interest on the microblogging network,[22] this became known as a hashtag. carried on abroad, or with other countries. The symbol is distinguished from similar symbols by its combination of level horizontal strokes and right-tilting vertical strokes. [9] It appeared in many of the early teleprinter codes and from there was copied to ASCII, which made it available on computers and thus caused many more uses to be found for the character. the symbol (#) used for various purposes. › Pound Sign.
What does 'poke' refer to in the expression 'pig in a poke'. The text "5# bag of flour" would mean "five pound bag of flour". Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020. a symbol (£) for “pound” or “pounds” as a monetary unit of the United Kingdom.
The symbol was introduced on the bottom right button of touch-tone keypads in 1968, but that button was not extensively used until the advent of large scale voicemail (PBX systems, etc.) [7][8] This abbreviation was printed with a dedicated ligature type, with a horizontal line across, so that the lowercase letter l would not be mistaken for the numeral 1. [11] The instruction manual of the Blickensderfer model 5 typewriter (c. 1896) appears to refer to the symbol as the "number mark". British typewriters had a £ key where American typewriters had a # key. characterized by cleverness or originality of invention or construction. When # is after a number, it is read as "pound" or "pounds", meaning the unit of weight.
[citation needed], The symbol appears to have been used primarily in handwritten material; in the printing business, the numero symbol (№) and barred-lb (℔) are used for "number" and "pounds" respectively.[where?
See the full definition for pound sign in the English Language Learners Dictionary. Pound is used for British Pounds Sterling and also other ‘pound’ currencies like the Egyptian Pound. “Affect” vs. “Effect”: Use The Correct Word Every Time. Our currency rankings show that the most popular United Kingdom Pound exchange rate is the GBP to EUR rate . To type a £ sign, you would hold the Alt key and them type 0163. ][citation needed], For mechanical devices, the symbol appeared on the keyboard of the Remington Standard typewriter (c. 1886),[18] but was not used on the keyboards used for typesetting. The symbol # is known as the number sign,[1] hash,[2] or (in North American usage) pound sign. [9][b], The symbol is described as the "number" character in an 1853 treatise on bookkeeping,[10] and its double meaning is described in a bookkeeping text from 1880. 'Nip it in the butt' or 'Nip it in the bud'?
It is believed that the symbol traces its origins to the symbol ℔,[a] an abbreviation of the Roman term libra pondo, which translates as "pound weight". Press and hold the ALT key and type the number 0163 to make a Pound symbol. : the symbol £ that represents the British pound. We know you’ll tackle this quiz totis viribus! Learn a new word every day.
Other attested names in Unicode are: pound sign, hash, crosshatch, octothorpe. If there is no key, the symbol can be produced on Windows with Alt+35, on Mac OS with ⌥ Opt+3, and on Linux with Compose++. Pound can look different. [15] The use of the phrase "pound sign" to refer to this symbol is found from 1932 in U.S. and '℔' are used commonly and interchangeably. Also check out the Euro Sign. [12] Some early-20th-century U.S. sources refer to it as the "number sign",[13] although this could also refer to the numero sign. The main issue here is that “pound sign” in the US originally denoted pound weight (lb.). Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'pound sign.' Or something like that. 10 Types Of Nouns Used In The English Language.
ABOUT. The British Pound is the currency of United Kingdom. The use of # as an abbreviation for "number" may be understood in Britain and Ireland, where there has been business or educational contact with American usage, but use in print is rare. The Pound symbol has slightly different looks depending on the font. English Language Learners Definition of pound sign. Accessed 21 Oct. 2020. Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). [4], Since 2007, widespread usage of the symbol to introduce metadata tags on social media platforms has led to such tags being known as "hashtags",[5] and from that, the symbol itself is sometimes called a hashtag.[6]. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes, including the designation of an ordinal number and as a ligatured abbreviation for pounds avoirdupois – having been derived from the now-rare ℔. What Is The Difference Between “It’s” And “Its”? Dictionary.com Unabridged [14] A 1917 manual distinguishes between two uses of the sign: "number (written before a figure)"; and "pounds (written after a figure)". The symbol # is known as the number sign, hash, or pound sign.
But it is not a replacement for '£'. How to use a word that (literally) drives some pe... Name that government! The abbreviations 'lb.' a symbol (#) for “pound” or “pounds” as a unit of weight or mass: 20# bond paper stock. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!
Why Do “Left” And “Right” Mean Liberal And Conservative? Use unicode Pound symbol in a html document or copy paste the character. Nowadays the symbol is encountered far more often as a transcription of one of its computing uses, see below. Now used as a symbol to identify a group of tweets around the same topic, the hashtag, or, Now the social media company is witnessing the power of the, Post the Definition of pound sign to Facebook, Share the Definition of pound sign on Twitter, 'Cordial': A Word Straight from the Heart. The pound sign (£ or ₤) is the symbol for the pound sterling—the currency of the United Kingdom (UK). See the full definition for pound sign in the English Language Learners Dictionary. Neither usage is common outside North America. United Kingdom, Pound.