See also:⁄[U+2044 FRACTION SLASH],
∕[U+2215 DIVISION SLASH],and🙼[U+1F67C VERY HEAVY SOLIDUS] - See also:/ / for the use of / to enclose other characters.
- See also:\.
 | A user suggests that this Translingual entry be cleaned up, giving the reason:“The entry is too English for being Translingual, several meanings could be English instead of Translingual. Another example besides the labels: In German the conjunction for "exclusive or" is not more proscribed than the conjunction for "inclusive or". It might also be so in English, as it could be that "s/he" and (maybe: *) "wo/man" are proscribed, while "she/he" and "man/woman" are just sometimes proscribed.” |
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The various uses of the present symbol derive from several sources. The medievalvirgule (Latinvirgula) was anoblique orvertical line that served as acomma,period, and caesura mark and is still used in literary contexts to mark line breaks in verse. (This mark separately developed as thecomma ⟨,⟩ andcaesura mark ⟨‖⟩ and some senses of thevertical bar ⟨|⟩.) Theshilling mark (Latinsolidus) was variously writtens. or as thelong sſ. This eventually developed into a single unpunctuated slash; its use to separate shillings from pence was sometimes generalized to any currency division. Most mathematical senses derived from the earlier horizontalfraction bar (as in12, usually attributed to Arabic mathematicianal-Hassar), rewritten with a slash by the 18th century to permit fractions to be written on a single line. As a separator and conjunction, it represents an oblique form of thedash ⟨–⟩ orhyphen ⟨-⟩. Its use to mark supposed actions derives from command formatting in online chat forums, while its use to comment on preceding text derives from its use in some programming languages to form closing tags. Its present British namestroke derives from its use in telegraphy; its present American nameslash gained wide currency from its use in computing.
/ (English nameslashorstrokeorsolidus)
- Used todenote aline orparagraphbreak whenquotingpoems,scripts,songlyrics, etc. in asingle-lineformat.
Never gonna give you up/ Never gonna let you down
- Used toseparatealternativeoptions.
- (computing)Used to separate commands orkeys that can be typed, usually in a commandprompt.
QUIT? Y/N
- (sometimes proscribed)Used to separatemultiplegenderedinflections in "gender-neutral" writing.
Freund/innen; ein/e Beamt/er/in(in German)- friends (of any gender); an officer (of any gender)
- (informal, text messaging)Used toshow that thefollowingtext is to beunderstood as anaction orprogrammingcommandperformed by the writer, in the manner of anonlinechat command.
/fliptable
- (informal, programming, text messaging)Denotes a given attribute of thepreceding content in the manner of aclosingtag. Seetone tag.
I support him completely/sarcasm
- (computing)Used toseparate thenesteddirectorylevels in afile orURLpath.
/Documents/work/financial/Earnings.odt
- (when used in isolation)Therootpath of aUnix orUnix-likeoperating system.
- (numismatics, sometimes proscribed)Used toseparatebasecurrencyunits from theirsubdivisions; or, when followed by adash orhyphenmarking anevensum.
- (poker)Used to separate thesmall blind from thebig blind.
Which game do you want to play? The $1/$2 or the $2/$5?
- (proofreading)Used to denote theend of amarginalnote, or to separate two such notes.
- Usedin place of adash orhyphen in several contexts.
- Uses relating totimeperiods.
- (usually informal)Used to separate thecomponents of adate.
9/11 is September 11th to most Americans but the 9th of November in the British Isles.
- Used to mark a periodspanning two dates, such as thenight beginning on oneday and ending on the next, or thewinter spanning twoyears.
Santa Claus is said to visit all the world’s children on the night of December 24/25.
- (international standards)Used to mark normal date ranges.
We coded that over the fall term of our senior year, 2010-09-01/12-22.
- Used to separate a particular amount (such as a score) or location (such as a page) from the total number of possible points or similar items;out of.
I got a grade of 85/100 on the midterm test.
- (politics)Used to separatepercentagesfor andagainst orapproving anddisapproving (always in that order) inpollresults.
Her approval numbers stand at 42/23, meaning she presently has a net favorability of +19 but that a large number of voters remain undecided.
- Used in forming someabbreviations.
- Used to form abbreviations of units derived throughdivision :per.
The formal abbreviation for kilometers per hour is km/h.
The exchange rate of euros in terms of dollars is expressed EUR/USD.
- Used to form numerouscontractions andinitialisms, particularly of two-word phrases.
w/ (with), w/o (without), b/c (because), and 24/7 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week).
- Used in some contexts to markhierarchies.
The American Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation is formally abbreviated FAA/AST.
- (Internetslang, originally Japanese, derived from manga iconography (漫符))Indicates blushing. Used at the end of a sentence. Usually used more than once.
- (obsolete) Amedieval andearly modern form of thecomma ⟨,⟩.
- (obsolete) Amedieval form of theperiod ⟨.⟩.
- See/ /for uses of the slash to enclose other characters, as in/pɹənʌnsiˈeɪʃənz/.
- The mark was originally known as thevirgula orvirgule in its medieval use as a form ofperiod orcomma. It is now defined byUnicode andISO as thesolidus, a late-19th-century British term for theshilling mark. (Some typographers mistaken label this mark as thevirgule and distinguish thesolidus as the fraction slash ⟨⁄⟩, but neither historical nor present official use supports such a distinction.) The mark is now generally known by the American termslash orforward slash, although still frequently known as astroke in British English. For translations and less common English names, seeslash.
- In most uses such as to indicate date separations and line breaks, the mark is not mentioned when the text is read aloud. In some cases, it is replaced by a term, such as “even” for currency or “out of” for totals.
- (many senses):-,–
- (line breaks):|
- (currency subdivision mark):.,·
- (abbreviation mark):.,-
/
- (sometimes proscribed)inclusive or(used to link compatible alternatives or joint items)
- He's an actor/ model.
- (proscribed)exclusive or(used to link mutually-exclusive alternatives)
- I think she/ he writes very well.
/
- (mathematics) Asingle-linedivision sign,used withfull-sizenumerals. See also∕(“division slash”).
- (mathematics) A single-linefractiondivider, used with full-size numerals. See also⁄(“fraction slash”).
- (historical, numismatics) Thecurrency sign forBritish,Irish,Kenyan, etc.shillings.
- (orthography) typographic substitute for the dental click⟨ǀ⟩.
Punctuation
/
- (Stenoscript) The sound sequence /rd/, /rt/, or /rk/ (whether spelled ⟨rk⟩ or ⟨rc⟩).
- (Stenoscript) The suffix or sequence-ward.
