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The Origins of Common Symbols: @, &, #, %

Tap a symbol to see its origin.

@ β€” At Sign

Originated from a symbol medieval merchants used to denote a unit price ("at a rate of"), and became globally recognized through its use in email addresses.

& β€” Ampersand

Formed by merging the letters "e" and "t" from the Latin word "et," meaning "and," into a single cursive shape.

# β€” Hash (Pound Sign)

Originally used to denote the weight unit "pound," it gained a new meaning after being adopted on social media to group posts around a topic.

% β€” Percent

Said to have evolved from a gradually simplified abbreviation of the Italian phrase "per cento," meaning "per hundred," into today's % symbol.

Β§ β€” Section Sign

Used in legal documents to mark section divisions; one theory traces its origin to two overlapping letter S's.

* β€” Asterisk

Derived from the ancient Greek word for "little star," widely used to mark footnotes or add emphasis.

Even Everyday Symbols Have Fascinating Histories

These symbols we type on a keyboard every day mostly emerged naturally from commerce or handwriting practices centuries ago. Knowing how each one came to have its current shape and meaning can make an ordinary keyboard look a little different.

Symbols Keep Gaining New Meanings

The hashtag is a great example of how a symbol's meaning can evolve entirely with the times β€” from a weight unit to a way of grouping topics on social media, showing that a symbol's meaning is never permanently fixed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the @ symbol used in email addresses?

The engineer who developed email in 1971 is said to have chosen the then rarely used @ symbol to sit between a username and an address, to express the idea of "someone at some location."

Was the hash (#) symbol originally designed for social media tags?

No β€” it originally represented a number or weight unit, but around 2007 Twitter began using it to group posts by topic, giving rise to the new "hashtag" usage.