&

Also known as ampersand, epershand, ASCII 38, Unicode 38, U+0026, amperse and, ligature et

The ampersand, also known as the and sign, is the logogram , representing the conjunction "and". It originated as a ligature of the word (Latin for ).

Key facts

Grapheme.letter: &
Grapheme.imagesize: 200px
Grapheme.imagealt: Variations of the Ampersand in different fonts.
Grapheme.script: Latin script
Grapheme.type: Logographic
Grapheme.typedesc: and Ideographic
Grapheme.language: Latin language
Grapheme.unicode: U+0026
Grapheme.alphanumber: (27)
Grapheme.fam1: 𐌄𐌕
Grapheme.fam2: ET
Grapheme.fam3: et
Grapheme.fam4: class=skin-invert-image|20px|ɛt (Some modern fonts, like Trebuchet MS, employ ampersand characters that reveal its origin)
Grapheme.fam5: class=skin-invert-image|20px|eτ
Grapheme.fam6: class=skin-invert-image|20px|& (italic, 1735)
Grapheme.fam7: class=skin-invert-image|20px|& in modern handwriting
Grapheme.usageperiod: to present
Grapheme.children: ⅋

via Wikipedia infobox

~13 min read

Encyclopedic overview

16 sections

Contents

Etymology
History
Similar characters
Writing the ampersand
Usage
Computing
Encoding and display
Programming languages
Text markup
Unix shells
Web standards
Typeface samples
Notes
See also
References
External links

The ampersand, also known as the and sign, is the logogram , representing the conjunction "and". It originated as a ligature of the word (Latin for ).

==Etymology==

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “&” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.