ampersand etymology

Etymology:

The ampersand symbol (&) is a ligature, a combination of two or more letters joined together to form a single character. It originated from the Latin word "et," which means "and."

Meaning:

The ampersand is used as a conjunction, meaning "and." It is commonly used in informal writing, lists, and titles.

Origin:

• 7th Century: The ampersand first appears in the Latin alphabet as a ligature of the letters "E" and "T" in the phrase "et cetera" ("and so on").
• 13th Century: The ampersand symbol becomes more widely used in handwritten documents.
• 15th Century: The ampersand is standardized as a printed type character.
• 16th Century: The term "ampersand" is coined by printers to distinguish the character from the words "and" and "et."
• 19th Century: The ampersand becomes popular in informal writing and usage.

Other Forms:

Other variations of the ampersand symbol include:

• Tironian et (&)
• Aldine ampersand (&)
• HTML entity (&)
• Unicode character U+0026 (&)

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