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Theat sign (@) is anaccounting andinvoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of" (e.g. 7widgets @£2 per widget = £14),[1] now seen more widely inemail addresses andsocial media platformhandles. It is normally read aloud as "at" and is also commonly called theat symbol,commercial at, oraddress sign. Most languages have their own name for the symbol.
Although not included on thekeyboard layout of the earliest commercially successfultypewriters, it was on at least one 1889 model[2] and the very successfulUnderwood models from the "Underwood No. 5" in 1900 onward. It started to be used in email addresses in the 1970s, and is now routinely included on most types ofcomputer keyboards.
@ symbol used as the initial "a" for the "amin" (amen) formula in the Bulgarian of the Manasses Chronicle,c. 1345.[3]TheAragonese @ symbol used in the 1448"taula de Ariza" registry to denote a wheat shipment fromCastile to theKingdom of Aragon.[4]@ used to signify French "à" ("at") from a 1674 protocol from aSwedish court (Arboga rådhusrätt och magistrat)
The earliest yet discovered symbol in this shape is found in aBulgarian translation of aGreek chronicle written byConstantinos Manasses in 1345. Held today in the Vatican Apostolic Library, it features the @ symbol in place of the capital letteralpha "Α" as aninitial in the word Amen; however, the reason behind it being used in this context is still unknown. The evolution of the symbol as used today is not recorded.
It has long been used inCatalan,Spanish andPortuguese as an abbreviation ofarroba, a unit of weight equivalent to 25 pounds, and derived from theArabic expression of "the quarter" (الربع pronouncedar-rubʿ).[5] A symbol resembling an @ is found in the Spanish "Taula de Ariza", a registry to denote a wheat shipment from Castile to Aragon, in 1448.[6] The historian Giorgio Stabile claims to have traced the @ symbol to the 16th century, in a mercantile document sent byFlorentine Francesco Lapi fromSeville toRome on May 4, 1536.[6] The document is about commerce withPizarro, in particular the price of an @ of wine inPeru. Currently, the wordarroba means both the at-symbol and a unit of weight. InVenetian, the symbol was interpreted to meanamphora (anfora), a unit of weight and volume based upon the capacity of the standard amphora jar since the 6th century. It could also mean “adi” (standard Italian “addì”, i. e. ‘on the day of’) as used on a health pass in Northern Italy in 1667.[7]
The name of the symbol arises from its original use in showing quantities and their price per unit – for example, "10 widgets @ £1.50 each". The precise origin of the symbol is uncertain.[8]
The absence of a single English word for the symbol has prompted some writers to use theFrencharobase,[9] to coin new words such asampersat[10] andasperand,[11] or the (visual) onomatopoeiastrudel,[12] but none of these have achieved wide use.
In contemporary English usage, @ is a commercial symbol, meaningat andat the rate of orat the price of. It has rarely been used in financial ledgers, and is not used in standardtypography.[13]
In 2012, "@" was registered as atrademark with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office.[14] A cancellation request was filed in 2013, and the cancellation was ultimately confirmed by the German Federal Patent Court in 2017.[15]
A common contemporary use of @ is inemail addresses (using theSMTP system), as injdoe@example.com (the userjdoe locatedat the domainexample.com).Ray Tomlinson ofBBN Technologies is credited for having introduced this usage in 1971.[11][16] This idea of the symbol representinglocated at in the formuser@host is also seen in other tools and protocols; for example, theUnix shell commandssh jdoe@example.net tries to establish anssh connection to the computer with thehostnameexample.net using the usernamejdoe.
On web pages, organizations often obscure the email addresses of their members or employees by omitting the @. This practice, known asaddress munging, attempts to make the email addresses less vulnerable to spam programs that scan the internet for them.
On many social media platforms and forums,usernames or handles prefixed with an @ (in the form@johndoe) are interpreted asmentions of that user and may be treated specially.
On online forums withoutthreaded discussions, @ is commonly used to denote a reply; for instance:@Jane to respond to a comment Jane made earlier. Similarly, in some cases, @ is used for "attention" in email messages originally sent to someone else. For example, if an email was sent from Catherine to Steve, but in the body of the email, Catherine wants to make Keirsten aware of something, Catherine will start the line@Keirsten to signal to Keirsten that the following sentence concerns her.[citation needed] This also helps with mobile email users who might not see bold or color in email.
Inmicroblogging (such as onTwitter,GNU social- andActivityPub-based microblogs), an @ before the user name is used to send publicly readable replies (e.g.@otheruser: Message text here). The blog and client system interpret these as links to the user in question. When included as part of a person's or company's contact details, an @ symbol followed by a name is normally understood to refer to a Twitter handle. A similar use of the @ symbol was added to Facebook on September 15, 2009.[17] InInternet Relay Chat (IRC), it is shown before users' nicknames to denote they have operator status on a channel.
InAmerican English the @ can be used to add information about a sporting event. Where opposing sports teams have their names separated by a "v" (forversus), theaway team can be written first – and the normal "v" replaced with @ to convey at which team's home field the game will be played.[18][better source needed] This usage is not followed inBritish English, since conventionally the home team is written first.[citation needed]
InActionScript, @ is used in XML parsing and traversal as a string prefix to identify attributes in contrast to child elements.[19]
InAda 2022, @ is thetarget name symbol, an abbreviation of theLHS of an assignment; it is used to avoid repetition of potentially long names in assignment statements.[20] For example:A_Very_Long_Variable_Name := A_Very_Long_Variable_Name + 1; is shortened toA_Very_Long_Variable_Name := @ + 1;, increasing readability.
InALGOL 68, the @ symbol isbrief form of theatkeyword; it is used to change the lower bound of an array. For example:arrayx[@88] refers to an array starting at index 88.[21]
In DyalogAPL, @ is used as a functional way to modify or replace dataat specific locations in an array.
In theASP.NET MVCRazor template markup syntax, the @ character denotes the start of code statement blocks or the start of text content.[22][23]
InCSS, @ is used in special statements outside of a CSS block.[25]
InC#, it denotes "verbatim strings", where no characters are escaped and two double-quote characters represent a single double-quote.[26] As a prefix it also allows keywords to be used asidentifiers,[27] a form ofstropping.
InD, it denotes function attributes: like:@safe,@nogc, user defined@('from_user') which can be evaluated at compile time (with__traits) or@property to declare properties, which are functions that can be syntactically treated as if they were fields or variables.[28]
InDIGITAL Command Language, the @ character was the command used to execute a command procedure. To run the command procedure VMSINSTAL.COM, one would type@VMSINSTAL at the command prompt.
In theDomain Name System (DNS), @ is used to represent the$ORIGIN, typically the "root" of the domain without a prefixed sub-domain. (Ex: wikipedia.org vs. www.wikipedia.org)
InForth, it is used to fetch values from the address on the top of the stack. The operator is pronounced as "fetch".
InHaskell, it is used in so-calledas-patterns. This notation can be used to give aliases topatterns, making them more readable.
In anLXDE autostart file (as used, for example, on theRaspberry Pi computer), @ is prefixed to a command to indicate that the command should be automatically re-executed if it crashes.[32]
In aMakefile, @ specifies to not output the command before it is executed.
Inmodal logic, specifically when representingpossible worlds, @ is sometimes used as a logical symbol to denote the actual world (the world we are "at").
InObjective-C, @ is prefixed to language-specific keywords such as @implementation and to form string literals.
In InterSystemsObjectScript, @ is the indirection operator, enabling dynamic runtime substitution of part or all of a command line, a command, or a command argument.[33]
InPascal, @ is the "address of" operator (it tells the location at which a variable is found).
InPerl, @ prefixesvariables which containarrays@array, including arrayslices@array[2..5,7,9] andhash slices@hash{'foo','bar','baz'} or@hash{qw(foo bar baz)}. This use is known as asigil.
InPHP, it is used just before anexpression to make theinterpreter suppress errors that would be generated from that expression.[34]
InRust, it is used to bind values matched by a pattern to a variable.[39]
InScala, it is used to denote annotations (as in Java), and also to bind names to subpatterns in pattern-matching expressions.[40]
InSwift,@ prefixes "annotations" that can be applied to classes or members. Annotations tell the compiler to apply special semantics to the declaration like keywords, without adding keywords to the language.
InT-SQL,@ prefixes variables and@@ prefixes "niladic" system functions.
In severalxBase-type programming languages, likeDBASE,FoxPro/Visual FoxPro andClipper, it is used to denote position on the screen. For example:@1,1 SAY"HELLO" to show the word "HELLO" in line 1, column 1.
In a WindowsBatch file, an@ at the start of a line suppresses theechoing of that command. In other words, is the same asECHO OFF applied to the current line only. Normally a Windows command is executed and takes effect from the next line onward, but@ is a rare example of a command that takes effect immediately. It is most commonly used in the form@echo off which not only switches off echoing but prevents the command line itself from being echoed.[42][43]
InWindows PowerShell, @ is used as array operator for array and hash table literals and for enclosing here-string literals.[44]
InSpanish, where many words end in "-o" when in the masculinegender and end "-a" in the feminine, @ is sometimes used as agender-neutral substitute for the default "o" ending.[45] For example, the wordamigos traditionally represents not only male friends, but also a mixed group, or where the genders are not known. The proponents of gender-inclusive language would replace it withamig@s in these latter two cases, and useamigos only when the group referred to is all-male andamigas only when the group is all female. TheReal Academia Española disapproves of this usage.[46]
In (especially English) scientific and technical literature, @ is used to describe the conditions under which data are valid or a measurement has been made. E.g. the density of saltwater may readd = 1.050 g/cm3 @ 15 °C (read "at" for @), density of a gasd = 0.150 g/L @ 20 °C, 1 bar, or noise of a car 81 dB @ 80 km/h (speed).[47]
Algebraic notation for theCrazyhouse chess variant: An @ between a piece and a square denotes a piece dropped onto that square from the player's reserve.[52]
In manyroguelike games, @ is used to represent the player character.
In Spain and Portugal, theArroba, abbreviated using the @ sign, is a customary unit of weight, mass or volume. The namearroba is used in both countries for the @ sign more generally.
In many languages other than English, although most typewriters included the symbol, the use of @ was less common before email became widespread in the mid-1990s. Consequently, it is often perceived in those languages as denoting "the Internet", computerization, or modernization in general. Naming the symbol after animals is also common.
InAfrikaans, it is calledaapstert, meaning 'monkey tail', similarly to theDutch use of the word (aap is the word for 'monkey' or 'ape' inDutch,stert comes from the Dutchstaart).
InBulgarian, it is calledкльомба (klyomba – 'a badly written letter'),маймунско а (maymunsko a – 'monkey A'),маймунка (maimunka – 'little monkey'), orбаница (banitsa – a pastry roll often made in a shape similar to the character)
InCatalan, it is calledarrova (a unit of measure) orensaïmada (aMallorcan pastry, because of the similar shape of this food).
Inmainland China, it used to be called圈A (pronouncedquān A), meaning 'circled A' / 'enclosed A', or花A (pronouncedhuā A), meaning 'lacy A', and sometimes as小老鼠 (pronouncedxiǎo lǎoshǔ), meaning 'littlemouse'.[53] Nowadays, for most of China's youth, it is called艾特 (pronouncedài tè), which is a phonetic transcription ofat.
InTaiwan, it is小老鼠 (pronouncedxiǎo lǎoshǔ), meaning 'littlemouse'.
InCroatian, it is most often referred to by the English wordat (pronouncedet), and less commonly and more formally, with the prepositionpri (with the addressee in thenominative case, notlocative as per usualrection ofpri), meaning 'at', 'chez' or 'by'. Informally, it is called amanki, coming from the local pronunciation of the English wordmonkey. Note that the Croatian words for monkey,majmun,opica,jopec,šimija are not used to denote the symbol, except seldom the latter words regionally.
InDanish, it issnabel-a ('elephant's trunk A'). It is not used for prices, where in Danishà means 'at (per piece)'.
InDutch, it is calledapenstaart ('monkey's tail'). Thea is the first character of the Dutch wordaap which means 'monkey' or 'ape';apen is the plural ofaap. However, the use of the Englishat has become increasingly popular in Dutch.
InEsperanto, it is calledĉe-signo ('at' – for the email use, with an address like "zamenhof@esperanto.org" pronouncedzamenhof ĉe esperanto punkto org),po-signo ('each' – refers only to the mathematical use), orheliko (meaning 'snail').
InEstonian, it is calledätt, from the English wordat.
InFaroese, it iskurla,hjá ('at'),tranta, orsnápil-a ('[elephant's] trunk A').
InFinnish, it was originally calledtaksamerkki ("fee sign") oryksikköhinnan merkki ("unit price sign"), but these names are long obsolete and now rarely understood. Nowadays, it is officiallyät-merkki, according to the national standardization instituteSFS; frequently also spelledat-merkki. Other names includekissanhäntä ('cat's tail') andmiuku mauku ('miaow-meow') or short; “miu-mau”.
InFrench, it is now officially thearobase[54][55] (also spelledarrobase orarrobe), ora commercial (though this is most commonly used in French-speaking Canada, and should normally only be used when quoting prices; it should always be calledarobase or, better yet,arobas when in an email address). Its origin is the same as that of theSpanish word, which could be derived from theArabicar-roub (اَلرُّبْع). In France, it is also common (especially for younger generations) to say the English wordat when spelling out an email address.[citation needed] In everydayQuébec French, one often hearsa commercial when sounding out an e-mail address, while TV and radio hosts are more likely to usearobase.
InGerman, it has sometimes been referred to asKlammeraffe (meaning 'spider monkey') orAffenschwanz (meaning 'monkeytail').Klammeraffe orAffenschwanz refer to the similarity of @ to the tail of a monkey.[56] More recently,[when?] it is commonly referred to asat, as in English.
InMalaysia, it is calledalias when it is used in names anddi when it is used in email addresses,di being theMalay word for 'at'. It is also commonly used to abbreviateatau which means 'or', 'either'.
InMorse code, it is known as a "commat", consisting of the Morse code for the "A" and "C" which run together as one character: ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ . The symbol was added in 2004 for use with email addresses,[57] the only official change to Morse code sinceWorld War I.
InNepali, the symbol is called "at the rate." Commonly, people will give their email addresses by including the phrase "at the rate".[citation needed]
InNorwegian, it is officially calledkrøllalfa ('curlyalpha' or 'alpha twirl'), and commonly asalfakrøll. Sometimessnabel-a, the Swedish/Danish name (which means 'trunk A', as in 'elephant's trunk'), is used. Commonly, people will call the symbol[æt] (as in English), particularly when giving their email addresses. The computer manufacturerNorsk Data used it as the command prompt, and it was often called "grisehale" (pig's tail).
InPolish, it is commonly calledmałpa ('monkey'). Rarely, the English wordat is used.
InPortuguese, it is calledarroba (from the Arabicar-roub, اَلرُّبْع). The wordarroba is also used for a weight measure in Portuguese. One arroba is equivalent to 32 old Portuguese pounds, approximately 14.7 kg (32 lb), and both the weight and the symbol are calledarroba. In Brazil,cattle are still priced by thearroba – now rounded to 15 kg (33 lb). This naming is because the at sign was used to represent this measure.
InRomanian, it is most commonly calledat, but also colloquially calledcoadă demaimuță ("monkey tail") ora-rond. The latter is commonly used, and it comes from the wordround (from its shape), but that is nothing like the mathematical symbolA-rond (rounded A). Others call itaron, orla (Romanian word for 'at').
InSwiss German, it is commonly calledAffenschwanz ('monkey-tail'). However, the use of the English wordat has become increasingly popular in Swiss German, as with Standard German.[citation needed]
InTagalog, the wordat means 'and', so the symbol is used like an ampersand in colloquial writing such as text messages (e.g.magluto @ kumain, 'cook and eat').
^[1] Jürgen Beyer, ‘Gesundheitspässe und Impfatteste’,Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte. Mitteilungen 100 (2021), 21–29, reproduction on p. 26.
^Soar, Daniel (28 May 2009)."Short Cuts".London Review of Books.31 (10): 18. Archived fromthe original on 2012-07-23.
^Bowen, David (23 October 2011)."Bits and Bytes".The Independent. Archived fromthe original on 9 July 2018.… Tim Gowens offered the highly logical "ampersat" ...}
^Chai, Yan; Guo, Ting; Jin, Changming; Haufler, Robert E.; Chibante, L. P. Felipe; Fure, Jan; Wang, Lihong; Alford, J. Michael; Smalley, Richard E. (1991). "Fullerenes wlth Metals Inside".Journal of Physical Chemistry.95 (20):7564–7568.doi:10.1021/j100173a002.
^Orthographe fixée par la Commission générale de terminologie et de néologie (Journal officiel du 8 décembre 2002)
^Paola Antonelli (March 22, 2010)."@ at MoMA". RetrievedApril 5, 2018.Germans, Poles, and South Africans call @ "monkey's tail" in each different language.
