Pound sign
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฿ • ₵ • ¢ • $ • ₡ • B/. • ₫ • € • ƒ • ₲ • ₭
£ • ₤ • ₥ • ₦ • ₱ • P • R • RM • ₨ • Sk
৲ • S/. • ৳ • R$ • $ • ₮ • ₩ • ¥ • zł • ₴ • ₪
Former signs
₳ • ₢ • ₰ • ₯ • ₠ • ₣ • Lm • ℳ • ₧ • I/.• Kčs
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apostrophe ( ’ ' ) |
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spaces ( ) ( ) ( ) |
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ampersand ( & ) |
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asterism ( ⁂ ) |
- See also: Pound (currency).
The pound sign ("₤" or later more commonly in the UK "£") is the symbol for the pound sterling – the currency of the United Kingdom (UK). The same symbol is (or was) used for currencies of the same name in some other countries and territories; there are other countries whose currency is called "the pound", but do not use the £ symbol.
Both symbols derive from librum, the basic Roman unit of weight (about 0.329 kg), in turn derived from the Latin word for scales or balance. The pound became a British unit of weight, and the pound currency unit was so named because it was originally the value of 1 pound Tower Weight (326 g) of fine (pure) silver. Incidentally, the pre-decimalisation penny (of which 240 made £1) took the symbol d from the Latin word denarius, the Roman 'penny'.
The pound sign, like the dollar sign ("$"), is usually placed before the number (i.e. "£12,000" and not "12,000£"), and is usually not separated from the following number, or is separated only by a thin space.
The symbol "₤" is also known as the lira sign. In Italy, prior to the adoption of the euro, the symbol was used as an alternative to the more usual L to indicate prices in lire (but always with double horizontal lines).
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[edit] Computing
[edit] Codepoints
The symbol "£" has Unicode code point U+00A3 (inherited from Latin-1)[1]. It has a HTML entity reference of £ and has an XML decimal entity reference of £.
The symbol "₤" has Unicode code point U+20A4, decimal entity reference ₤.
[edit] Entry methods
The PC UK keyboard layout has the "£" symbol on the 3 number key, where an American keyboard has the number sign ("#").
On a US-International keyboard, the symbol can be accessed with the key combination AltGr+Shift+4.
The symbol "£" is in the MacRoman character set, and so can be generated on most Mac OS keyboard layouts, typically through Option+3. Under Microsoft Windows, it can be accessed through the Alt keycodes 0163, 156.
[edit] See also
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