What & means, where its name comes from, and how to type it — click to copy.
Click to copy · U+0026
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Character | & |
| Unicode code point | U+0026 |
| Unicode name | AMPERSAND |
| Unicode block | Basic Latin (standard ASCII) |
| Category | Special character |
The ampersand began as a ligature — a single joined stroke — for the Latin word et, meaning "and." Roman scribes were already fusing the E and T together in cursive handwriting by the 1st century AD, and that fused shape was gradually stylized over the following centuries into the modern &.
Its odd name has nothing to do with its shape and everything to do with how 19th-century schoolchildren recited the alphabet. & was traditionally tacked on as the 27th "letter" after Z, and since reciting "& " on its own would be confusing (it's a symbol, not a letter that spells anything), students appended the Latin phrase per se ("by itself"): "X, Y, Z, and per se and." Repeated by generations of schoolchildren, that phrase slurred into a single word — "ampersand."
| Platform | Works? |
|---|---|
| Instagram bio / caption | Yes |
| Discord | Yes |
| TikTok display name | Yes |
| Yes | |
| Roblox / PlayStation / Xbox username | No — alphanumeric only |
| URLs | Reserved character — must be percent-encoded as %26 inside a query string |
| Method | Input |
|---|---|
| Keyboard (Windows & Mac, US layout) | Shift+7 |
| Windows Alt code | Alt+38 |
| HTML entity | & |
| CSS content | content: "\0026" |
& is one of dozens of punctuation and typography symbols in the full special characters library.
Browse Special Characters →It started as a ligature of the Latin word et (meaning "and"), visible in Roman cursive handwriting as early as the 1st century AD. Scribes gradually fused the E and T into a single stroke, and that fused shape evolved into the modern &.
In the 19th century, & was recited as the 27th letter after Z when children learned the alphabet. Since "&" by itself is a word, students said "and per se and" (Latin per se meaning "by itself") to clarify — and that phrase slurred over time into "ampersand."
It's a standard key on every keyboard — Shift+7 on a US layout, on both Windows and Mac. In HTML, escape it as & since a raw ampersand can be misread as the start of a character reference.