What £ means, its Latin origin, and how to type it — click to copy.
Click to copy · U+00A3
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Character | £ |
| Unicode code point | U+00A3 |
| Unicode name | POUND SIGN |
| Unicode block | Latin-1 Supplement |
| Category | Currency symbol |
£ traces back to the Latin word libra, a Roman unit of weight — the same root that gives English the abbreviation "lb" for pounds. Medieval English accountants abbreviated libra with a stylized capital L, and over centuries of handwriting that L picked up a horizontal crossbar, settling into the £ shape used today.
Pound sterling itself is one of the oldest currencies still in use, with roots going back over a thousand years to Anglo-Saxon England, which makes £ one of the oldest currency symbols still in active daily use anywhere in the world.
| Platform | Works? |
|---|---|
| Instagram bio / caption | Yes |
| Discord | Yes |
| TikTok display name | Yes |
| Yes | |
| Roblox / PlayStation / Xbox username | No — alphanumeric only |
| Method | Input |
|---|---|
| Windows Alt code | Alt+0163 |
| Mac | Option+3 |
| HTML entity | £ or £ |
| CSS content | content: "\00A3" |
£ is one of dozens of world currency symbols in the full currency symbols library.
Browse Currency Symbols →It comes from the Latin word libra, a unit of weight that also gave us the abbreviation "lb" for pounds. Medieval accountants wrote a stylized L with a horizontal crossbar to abbreviate libra in ledgers, and that shape became the modern £.
No, they're unrelated Unicode characters that happen to share a nickname. £ (U+00A3) is the British pound sterling currency symbol. # (U+0023) is the number sign, historically also called "pound" in American English because of its old use to abbreviate "lb" (pounds weight) as in "5#" meaning five pounds.
On Windows, hold Alt and type 0163 on the numeric keypad (Alt+0163). On Mac, press Option+3. In HTML, use the entity £ or £.