Pound sign

The symbol derives from the upper case Latin letter {{char|L}}, representing libra pondo, the basic unit of weight in the Roman Empire, which in turn is derived from the Latin word libra, meaning scales or a balance. The pound became an English unit of weight and in England became defined as the tower pound (equivalent to 350 grams) of sterling silver.{{cite book|title=A View of the Silver Coin and Coinage of England from the Norman Conquest to the Present Time|publisher=T. Snelling|date= 1762| author = Thomas Snelling |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_12AGAAAAQAAJ |page=ii |access-date=19 September 2016 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/history/poundhist.html |title=A brief history of the pound |publisher=The Dozenal Society of Great Britain |access-date=2011-01-14 |archive-date=2020-11-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112000041/http://www.dozenalsociety.org.uk/history/poundhist.html |url-status=live }} According to the Royal Mint Museum:

{{quote |It is not known for certain when the horizontal line or lines, which indicate an abbreviation,{{efn|See scribal abbreviations}} first came to be drawn through the L. However, there is in the Bank of England Museum a cheque dated 7 January 1661 with a clearly discernible £ sign. By the time the Bank was founded in 1694 the £ sign was in common use.{{cite web | url= http://www.royalmintmuseum.org.uk/Default.aspx?PageID=14314417 | title=The Origins of £sd | publisher=The Royal Mint Museum |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200308111135/http://www.royalmintmuseum.org.uk/Default.aspx?PageID=14314417 |archive-date= 8 March 2020}}}}

However, the simple letter L, in lower- or uppercase, was used to represent the pound in printed books and newspapers until well into the 19th century.For example, {{cite web | url = https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Diary_of_Samuel_Pepys/1660/January | title = Diary of Samuel Pepys/1660/January | author = Samuel Pepys | date = 2 January 1660 | access-date = 23 September 2019 | archive-date = 23 September 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190923210619/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Diary_of_Samuel_Pepys/1660/January | url-status = live }} Then I went to Mr. Crew's and borrowed L10 of Mr. Andrewes for my own use, and so went to my office, where there was nothing to do. In the blackletter type used until the seventeenth century,{{Cite book|title=An introduction to the history of printing types; an illustrated summary of main stages in the development of type design from 1440 up to the present day: an aid to type face identification.|last=Dowding|first=Geoffrey|publisher=Wace|year=1962|location=Clerkenwell [London]|pages=5}} the letter L is rendered as $\backslash mathfrak\{L\}$.

When used for sterling, the pound sign is placed before the numerals (e.g., £12,000) and separated from the following digits by no space or only a thin space. In the UK, the sign is used without any prefix. In Egypt and Lebanon, a disambiguating letter is added (E£{{cite web |url=https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/egp.asp |title=Egyptian Pound (EGP) Definition |website=Investopedia |first=Adam |last=Hayes |date=22 April 2022 |access-date=24 August 2022 |archive-date=7 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220807225735/https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/egp.asp |url-status=live }} or £E{{cite news | work=Daily News Egypt |url=https://dailynewsegypt.com/2008/06/10/alexandria-city-center-to-undergo-le-370-million-expansion/ | title=Alexandria City Center to undergo LE 370 million expansion |date=10 June 2008 }} and £L{{cite book |chapter-url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook_(1990)/Lebanon |title=CIA World Factbook 1990 - page 178 |chapter=Lebanon |via=en.wikisource.org |date=1 April 1990 |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency |access-date=2022-06-21 |archive-date=2022-06-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220621215739/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook_(1990)/Lebanon |url-status=live }} respectively). In international banking and foreign exchange operations, the symbol is rarely used: the ISO 4217 currency code (e.g., GBP, EGP, etc.) is preferred.{{efn|Prior to ISO 4217, abbreviations such as "stg" or "STG" were traditionally used to disambiguate sterling from other currencies that used the symbol.}}

In Canadian English, the symbol {{char|£}} is called the pound sign. The symbol {{char|#}} has several uses and is sometimes called the pound sign too, though it is most often known as the number sign.{{cite book|editor1-last=Barber|editor1-first= Katherine|title=The Canadian Oxford dictionary|date=2004|publisher= Oxford University Press |location=Toronto|isbn=0-19-541816-6|edition=2nd}} (Telephone instructions for equipment manufactured in the United States often call {{char|#}} the pound key.)

In American English, the term "pound sign" usually refers to the symbol {{char|#}} (number sign), and the corresponding telephone key is called the "pound key".{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/24/magazine/on-language-hit-the-pound-sign.html | title=On Language; Hit the Pound Sign | author=William Safire | author-link=William Safire | work=New York Times | access-date=2011-05-21 | date=1991-03-24 | archive-date=2010-07-21 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100721065416/http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/24/magazine/on-language-hit-the-pound-sign.html | url-status=live }} (As in Canada, the # symbol has many other uses.)

Banknotes issued by the Bank of England since 1975 have used only the single bar style as a pound sign.{{cite web | url = https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/withdrawn-banknotes | title = Withdrawn banknotes | publisher = Bank of England | access-date = 13 September 2019 | archive-date = 15 January 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190115092327/https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/withdrawn-banknotes | url-status = live }} ("£1 1st Series Treasury Issue" to "£5 Series B"){{cite web | url = https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/current-banknotes | title = Current banknotes | publisher = Bank of England | access-date = 8 November 2019 | archive-date = 4 December 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191204081441/https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/current-banknotes | url-status = live }}{{cite web | title=History of the use of the single crossbar pound sign on Bank of England's banknotes | url=https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/freedom-of-information/2022/history-of-the-use-of-the-single-crossbar-pound-sign-on-banknotes | publisher=Bank of England | access-date=13 April 2022 | archive-date=25 March 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220325080653/https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/freedom-of-information/2022/history-of-the-use-of-the-single-crossbar-pound-sign-on-banknotes | url-status=live }} The bank used both the two-bar style ({{char|₤}}) and the one-bar style ({{char|£}}) (and sometimes a figure without any symbol whatever) more or less equally from 1725 to 1971 intermittently and sometimes concurrently. In typography, the symbols are allographs{{snd}} style choices{{snd}} when used to represent the pound; consequently fonts use {{unichar|00A3|pound sign}} (Unicode) code point irrespective of which style chosen, (not {{unichar|20A4|lira sign|nlink=Lira#Lira sign}} despite its similarity). It is a font design choice on how to draw the symbol at U+00A3. Although most computer fonts do so with one bar, the two-bar style is not rare, as may be seen in the illustration above.

file:CaslonSp.svg

In the eighteenth-century Caslon metal fonts, the pound sign was identical to an italic uppercase J, rotated 180 degrees.{{cite journal |last1=Howes |first1=Justin |date=2000 |title=Caslon's punches and matrices |url=http://davethedesigner.net/kabk/palladiumcaslon.pdf |journal=Matrix |volume=20 |pages=1–7 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240713170117/http://davethedesigner.net/kabk/palladiumcaslon.pdf |archive-date=2024-07-13}}{{Failed verification|date=April 2025|reason=Not explicitly stated by cited article.}}

• Egypt: Egyptian pound
• Falkland Islands: Falkland Islands pound
• Gibraltar: Gibraltar pound
• Guernsey: Guernsey pound
• Isle of Man: Manx pound
• Jersey: Jersey pound
• Saint Helena: Saint Helena pound
• South Sudan: South Sudanese pound
• Sudan: Sudanese pound
• Syria: Syrian pound
• United Kingdom: Pound sterling

• American Colonies:
• Connecticut pound
• Delaware pound
• Georgia pound
• Maryland pound
• New Hampshire pound
• New Jersey pound
• New York pound
• North Carolina pound
• Pennsylvania pound
• Rhode Island pound
• South Carolina pound
• Virginia pound
• Australia: Australian pound
• The Bahamas: Bahamian pound
• Bermuda: Bermudian pound
• British Mandatory Palestine: Palestine pound
• Canada: Canadian pound
• New Brunswick pound
• Nova Scotian pound
• Prince Edward Island pound
• Cyprus: Cypriot pound
• Fiji: Fijian pound
• The Gambia: Gambian pound
• Ghana: Ghanaian pound
• Ireland: Irish pound
• Israel: Israeli pound
• Malta: Maltese pound
• Newfoundland: Newfoundland pound
• New Zealand: New Zealand pound
• Rhodesia: Rhodesian pound
• South Africa: South African pound
• Tonga: Tongan pound
• Western Samoa: Western Samoan pound
• Yemen : Yemeni dinar

In the Unicode standard, the pound sign is encoded at {{unichar|00A3|Pound sign|html=}}{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf |date=11 June 2015 |title=The Unicode Standard, Version 10.0 | Character Code Charts |vauthors=((The Unicode Consortium)) |access-date=2018-01-23 |archive-date=2019-06-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190613180628/https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf |url-status=live }} Whether the glyph is drawn with one or two bars is a type designer's choice as explained above; the key point is that the code is constant irrespective of the presentation chosen.{{efn|There is a separate code point, {{unichar|20A4|Lira sign|html=}}{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U20A0.pdf |date=26 August 2015 |title=The Unicode Standard, Version 10.0 | Character Code Charts |vauthors=((The Unicode Consortium)) |access-date=2018-01-23 |archive-date=2021-02-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225021252/https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U20A0.pdf |url-status=live }} Unicode notes that the "lira sign" is not widely used and was added due to both it and the pound sign being available on HP printers.{{cite book |title=The Unicode Standard - Version 8.0 - Core Specification - Chapter 22.1. Currency Symbols |date=August 2015 |orig-year=1991 |editor-first1=Julie D. |editor-last1=Allen |publisher=Unicode, Inc. |location=Mountain View, CA, USA |pages=751–752 |isbn=978-1-936213-10-8 |url=https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode8.0.0/ch22.pdf |access-date=2016-12-06 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161206230132/http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode8.0.0/ch22.pdf |archive-date=2016-12-06 |quote=[...] Currency Symbols: U+20A0–U+20CF [...] Lira Sign. A separate currency sign U+20A4 LIRA SIGN is encoded for compatibility with the HP Roman-8 character set, which is still widely implemented in printers. In general, U+00A3 POUND SIGN may be used for both the various currencies known as pound (or punt) and the currencies known as lira. [...]}} }}

The encoding of the £ symbol in position xA3 (163₁₀) was first standardised by ISO Latin-1 (an "extended ASCII") in 1985. Position xA3 was used by the Digital Equipment Corporation VT220 terminal, Mac OS Roman, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, and Acorn Archimedes.

Many early computers (limited to a 7-bit, 128-position character set) used a variant of ASCII with one of the less-frequently used characters replaced by the £. The UK national variant of ISO 646 was standardised as BS 4730 in 1985. This code was identical to ASCII except for two characters: x23 encoded {{char|£}} instead of {{char|#}}, while x7E encoded {{char|‾}} (overline) instead of {{char|~}} (tilde). MS-DOS on the IBM PC originally used a proprietary 8-bit character set Code page 437 in which the £ symbol was encoded as x9C; adoption of the ISO/IEC 8859-1 ("ISO Latin-1") standard code xA3 only came later with Microsoft Windows. The Atari ST also used position x9C. The HP LaserJet used position xBA (ISO/IEC 8859-1: {{char|º}}) for the £ symbol, while most other printers used x9C. The BBC Ceefax system which dated from 1976 encoded the £ as x23. The Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 characters sets used x0C (ASCII: form feed). The ZX Spectrum and the BBC Micro used x60 (ASCII: {{char|`}}, grave). The Commodore 64 used x5C (ASCII: {{char|\}}) while the Oric computers used x5F (ASCII: {{char|_}}). IBM's EBCDIC code page 037 uses xB1 for the £ while its code page 285 uses x5B. ICL's 1900-series mainframes used a six-bit (64-position character set) encoding for characters, loosely based on BS 4730, with the £ symbol represented as octal 23 (hex 13, dec 19).

The logo of the UK Independence Party, a British political party, is based on the pound sign,{{cite web |title=UK Independence Party |url=http://www.ukip.org/ |access-date=17 April 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-date=24 August 2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000824101630/http://www.ukip.org/ }} symbolising the party's opposition to adoption of the euro and to the European Union generally.

A symbol that appears to be a double-barred pound sign is used as the logo of the record label Parlophone. In fact this is a stylised version of a Fraktur L ($\backslash mathfrak\{L\}$), standing for Lindström (the firm's founder Carl Lindström).

The pound sign was used as an uppercase letter (the lowercase being {{angbr|ſ}}, long s) to signify the sound {{IPAblink|ʒ}} in the early 1993–1995 version of the Turkmen Latin alphabet.{{cite journal |last=Clement |first=Victoria |date=2008 |title=Emblems of independence: script choice in post-Soviet Turkmenistan in the 1990s |journal=International Journal of the Sociology of Language |number=192 |pages=171–185}}

• Latin letter L with stroke {{char|Ł ł}}
• Semuncia {{char|𐆒}}
• :Category:Currency symbols

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{{Currency symbols}}

Category:Currency symbols