~
Tilde
Reads as 'approximately' before a number (~30 min), names the home directory in Unix paths (~/Documents), and negates bits in C-family code. On the US keyboard it shares the backquote key. Distinct from its wider relatives — the swung dash ⁓, the CJK wave dash 〜, and the centered tilde operator ∼ used in math — all frequent lookalikes.
Biography
medieval scribesBorn as scribal shorthand: a small n floated above a word to mark an omitted letter, which is how Latin annus became Spanish año — and why the Spanish ñ still wears a tilde today. Medieval scribes saved parchment one letter at a time, and the squiggle that did the saving outlived the practice to become a character of its own.
Copy it anywhere
- Symbol
~ - Unicode
U+007E - HTML entity
~ - CSS content
\007E - JavaScript
\u007E - URL encoded
~ - Windows Alt code
Alt+126