The
dollar sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various
dollarThe dollar is the name of the official currency in several countries, including Australia, Canada, the Eastern Caribbean territories, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States.-History:...
and
pesoThe word peso was the name of a coin that originated in Spain and became of immense importance internationally. Peso is now the name of the monetary unit of several former Spanish colonies...
units of
currencyIn economics, the term currency can refer either to a particular currency, for example the US dollar, or to the coins and banknotes of a particular currency, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
around the world.
The sign is attested in business correspondence between the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
,
AmericansThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canadians, and Mexicans in the 1770s, as referring to the Spanish-Mexican
pesoThe word peso was the name of a coin that originated in Spain and became of immense importance internationally. Peso is now the name of the monetary unit of several former Spanish colonies...
, known as "
Spanish dollarThe Spanish dollar is a silver coin, worth eight reales, that was minted in the Spanish Empire after a Spanish currency reform in 1497. It was legal tender in the United States until an Act of the United States Congress discontinued the practice in 1857...
" or "pieces of eight" in British North America where it was adopted as U.S. currency in 1785, together with the term "
dollarThe dollar is the name of the official currency in several countries, including Australia, Canada, the Eastern Caribbean territories, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States.-History:...
" and the $ sign.
The
originOrigin is a word meaning "beginning." In this sense, it may refer to:*Origin , the beginning, starting-point, cause, or ultimate source, from which a thing is derived*Origin , the point where the coordinate axes of the system intersect...
of the "$" sign has been variously accounted for.
The
dollar sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various
dollarThe dollar is the name of the official currency in several countries, including Australia, Canada, the Eastern Caribbean territories, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States.-History:...
and
pesoThe word peso was the name of a coin that originated in Spain and became of immense importance internationally. Peso is now the name of the monetary unit of several former Spanish colonies...
units of
currencyIn economics, the term currency can refer either to a particular currency, for example the US dollar, or to the coins and banknotes of a particular currency, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
around the world.
Origin
The sign is attested in business correspondence between the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
,
AmericansThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canadians, and Mexicans in the 1770s, as referring to the Spanish-Mexican
pesoThe word peso was the name of a coin that originated in Spain and became of immense importance internationally. Peso is now the name of the monetary unit of several former Spanish colonies...
, known as "
Spanish dollarThe Spanish dollar is a silver coin, worth eight reales, that was minted in the Spanish Empire after a Spanish currency reform in 1497. It was legal tender in the United States until an Act of the United States Congress discontinued the practice in 1857...
" or "pieces of eight" in British North America where it was adopted as U.S. currency in 1785, together with the term "
dollarThe dollar is the name of the official currency in several countries, including Australia, Canada, the Eastern Caribbean territories, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States.-History:...
" and the $ sign.
The
originOrigin is a word meaning "beginning." In this sense, it may refer to:*Origin , the beginning, starting-point, cause, or ultimate source, from which a thing is derived*Origin , the point where the coordinate axes of the system intersect...
of the "$" sign has been variously accounted for. Perhaps the most widely accepted explanation is that it is the result of the evolution of the Spanish and Mexican
scribal abbreviationScribal abbreviations are the abbreviations used by ancient and mediæval scribes writing in Latin and, later, in Greek...
"p
s" for pesos. This theory, derived from a study of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century manuscripts, explains that the
s gradually came to be written over the
p developing a close equivalent to the "$" mark."
Alternative hypotheses
There are a number of other theories about the origin of the symbol, some with a measure of academic acceptance, others the symbolic equivalent of folk etymologies.
Slash 8
That the dollar sign is derived from a slash through the numeral eight, denoting pieces of eight. The
Oxford English Dictionary before 1963 held that this was the most probable explanation, though later editions have placed it in doubt.
Potosi mint mark
That the dollar sign was derived from or inspired by the
mint markA mint mark is an inscription on a coin indicating the mint where the coin was produced.-History:Mint marks were first developed to locate a problem. If a coin was underweight, or overweight, the mint mark would immediately tell where the coin was minted, and the problem could be located and fixed...
on the Spanish "pieces of eight" that were minted in
PotosíPotosí is a city, the capital of the department of Potosí in Bolivia. It is claimed to be the highest city in the world at a nominal 4,090 m . It lies beneath the Cerro de Potosí — sometimes referred to as the Cerro Rico — a mountain popularly conceived of as being "made of" silver ore, which has...
(in present day
BoliviaBolivia, officially Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay and Argentina to the south, and Chile and Peru to the west....
). The mint mark was composed of the letters "PTSI" superimposed on one another and bear an undeniable resemblance to the single-stroke dollar sign (see above photo). The mark, which appeared on silver coins minted from 1573 to 1825 in Potosí, the largest
mintMiNT is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST and its successors. Together with the free system components fVDI , XaAES , and TeraDesk , MiNT provides a free TOS compatible replacement OS that is capable of multitasking.MiNT was originally released by Eric Smith as...
during the colonial period, would have been widely recognized throughout the North American colonies.
Alchemic sigil for cinnabar
An
alchemicAlchemy is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties...
sigilA sigil is a symbol created for a specific magical purpose. A sigil is usually made up of a complex combination of several specific symbols or geometric figures, each with a specific meaning or intent....
for
cinnabarCinnabar, sometimes written cinnabarite, is a name applied to red mercury sulfide , or native vermillion, the common ore of mercury. The name comes from the Greek - "kinnabari" - used by Theophrastus, and was probably applied to several distinct substances. Other sources say the word comes from the...
dating at least as far back as the early eighteenth century.
Greek mythology
That the dollar sign may have also originated from
HermesHermes is the Messenger of the gods in Greek mythology as well as a guide to the Underworld. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of...
, the
Greek godGreek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
of bankers, thieves, messengers, and tricksters: Besides the
craneCranes are large, long-legged and long-necked birds of the order Gruiformes, and family Gruidae. There are fifteen species. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back...
, one of his symbols was the
caduceus__FORCETOC__ The caduceus ☤ is typically depicted as a short herald's staff entwined by two serpents in the form of a double helix, and is sometimes surmounted by wings. This staff was first borne by Iris, the messenger of Hera...
, a staff from which ribbons or snakes dangled in a sinuous curve.
Spanish coat of arms
That the dollar sign derives from the Spanish coat of arms engraved on the Spanish colonial silver coins. The Spanish coat of arms on the coins includes two columns, the
Pillars of HerculesThe Pillars of Hercules was the phrase that was applied in Antiquity to the promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The northern Pillar is the Rock of Gibraltar in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar...
and a small "S"-shaped ribbon around each, with the motto "
Plus UltraPlus Ultra is Latin for "further beyond" and may refer to;*Plus Ultra , the motto of, among others, Charles V and Spain*Plus Ultra , a seaplane flown by a team of Spanish aviators, including Ramón Franco and Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz, on a Trans-Atlantic flight in 1926*AD Plus Ultra, a former...
".
From 'US'
That $ is a
monogramA monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos...
of U. S., used on money bags issued by the
United States MintThe United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce. The main Mint facility is located in Washington, D.C., and branch facilities are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Denver, Colorado; San Francisco, California; and West...
. The letters U and S superimposed resemble the historical double stroke "$" sign: the bottom of the 'U' disappears into the bottom curve of the 'S', leaving two vertical lines. This theory, popularized by novelist
Ayn RandAyn Rand , was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
in
Atlas Shrugged Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States. This was Rand's fourth, longest and last novel, and she considered it her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing...
, does not consider the fact that the symbol was already in use before the formation of the United States.
"Unit of silver"
That it derives from "unit of silver", each unit being one "bit" of the "pieces of eight". Before the American Revolution, prices were often quoted in units of the Spanish dollar. According to this theory, when a price was quoted the capital 'S' was used to indicate silver with a capital 'U' written on top to indicate units. Eventually the capital 'U' was replaced by double vertical hash marks.
German Thaler
That it derives from the symbol used on a German
ThalerThe Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...
. According to Ovason (2004), on one type of thaler one side showed the crucified
ChristChrist is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed". It is a translation of the Hebrew . The term "Christ" was a title rather than a proper name. In the four gospels in the New Testament, the word "Christ" is nearly always preceded by the definite article...
while the other showed a
serpentSnakes are elongate legless carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
hanging from a
crossA cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run diagonally, the design is technically termed a saltire....
, the letters NU near the serpent's head, and on the other side of the cross the number 21. This refers to the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
,
NumbersThe Book of Numbers or Bəmidbar is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah or Pentateuch.This book may be divided into three parts:#The numbering of the people at Sinai, and preparations for resuming their march...
, Chapter 21 (see
NehushtanThe Nehushtan , in Judaism, was a sacred object in the form of a copper snake upon a pole. King Hezekiah instituted a religious iconoclastic reform and destroyed the Nehushtan...
).
Roman sestertius
That the dollar sign goes back to the most important Roman coin, the
sestertiusThe sestertius, or sesterce, was an ancient Roman coin. During the Roman Republic it was a small, silver coin issued only on rare occasions...
, which had the letters 'HS' as its currency sign. When superimposed these letters form a dollar sign with two vertical strokes (the horizontal line of the 'H' merging into the 'S').
Later history of the dollar sign
According to a plaque in
St AndrewsSt Andrews is a town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle. St Andrews has a population of 16,596 making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife....
,
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, the dollar sign was first cast into type at a foundry in Philadelphia,
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1797 by the Scottish immigrant John Baine.
The dollar sign did not appear on
U.S. currencyThe United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents .The U.S...
until February 2007, when it was used on the reverse of a $1 coin authorized by the
Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005The Presidential $1 Coin Program is part of an Act of Congress, , which directs the United States Mint to produce $1 coins with engravings of relief portraits of U.S. Presidents on the obverse.-Legislative history:...
.
Use in computer programming
The symbol "$" has Unicode code point U+0024 (inherited from Latin-1).
As the dollar sign is one of the few symbols that are, on the one hand, almost universally present in computer character sets, but, on the other hand, rarely needed in their literal meaning within programming languages, the $ character has been used on computers for many purposes not related to money, including:
- $ was used as a string terminator in CP/M
CP/M is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
and subsequently also in all versions of 86-DOS, PC-DOSIBM PC DOS is a Proprietary DOS system for the IBM Personal Computer and compatibles, manufactured and sold by IBM from the 1980s to the 2000s.-Naming:Official product name of "PC DOS" are as below:...
, MS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the main operating system for personal computers during the 1980s. It was preceded by M-DOS , designed and copyrighted by Microsoft in 1979...
and derivatives (Int 21h with AH=09h)
- $ signifies the end of a line or the file in text editors ed
ed is a line editor for the Unix operating system. It was one of the first end-user programs hosted on the system and has been standard in Unix-based systems ever since. ed was originally written by Ken Thompson and contains one of the first implementations of regular expressions...
, exex, short for EXtended, is a line editor for Unix systems.The original ex was an advanced version of the standard Unix editor ed, included in the Berkeley Software Distribution...
, vivi is a family of screen-oriented text editors which share common characteristics, such as methods of invocation from the operating system command interpreter, and characteristic user interface features...
, picoPico is a text editor for Unix and Unix-based computer systems. It is integrated with the Pine e-mail client, which was designed by the Office of Computing and Communications at the University of Washington....
and derivatives, and, as a consequence:
- $ matches the end of a line or string in sed
sed is a Unix utility that parses text files and implements a programming language which can apply textual transformations to such files. It reads input files line by line , applying the operation which has been specified via the command line , and then outputs the line...
, grepgrep is a command line text search utility originally written for Unix. The name is taken from the first letters in global / regular expression / print, a series of instructions in text editors such as ed...
, and POSIXPOSIX or "Portable Operating System Interface [for Unix"] is the name of a family of related standards specified by the IEEE to define the application programming interface , along with shell and utilities interfaces for software compatible with variants of the Unix operating system, although the...
and PerlPerl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall, a linguist working as a systems administrator for NASA, in 1987, as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone...
regular expressionIn computing, regular expressions provide a concise and flexible means for identifying strings of text of interest, such as particular characters, words, or patterns of characters...
s.
- $ was used to define string
In mathematics, a string is an sequence of symbols that are chosen from a set or alphabet.In computer programming, a string is, essentially, a sequence of characters...
variables in older versions of the BASIC programming language ("$" was often pronounced "string" instead of "dollar" in this use).
- $ is used to define hexadecimal constants in Pascal-like languages such as Delphi, as well as in certain variants of assembly language
Assembly languages are a family of low-level languages for programming computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other integrated circuits. They implement a symbolic representation of the numeric machine codes and other constants needed to program a particular CPU architecture...
.
- $ is used at the beginnings of names to define variables
A variable is a symbol that stands for a value that may vary; the term usually occurs in opposition to constant, which is a symbol for a non-varying value, i.e. completely fixed or fixed in the context of use...
in the PHPPHP, or PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development, to produce dynamic web pages. It can be embedded into HTML and generally runs on a web server, which needs to be configured to process PHP code and create web...
programming language and the AutoItAutoIt is a freeware automation language for Microsoft Windows. In its earliest release, the software was primarily intended to create automation scripts for Microsoft Windows programs but has since grown to include enhancements in both programming language design and overall functionality.With...
automation script language, scalarIn computing, a scalar is a variable or field that can hold only one value at a time; as opposed to composite variables like array, list, record, etc. In some contexts, a scalar value may be understood to be numeric. A scalar data type is the type of a scalar variable...
variables in the PerlPerl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall, a linguist working as a systems administrator for NASA, in 1987, as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone...
programming language (see Sigil (computer programming)In computer programming, a sigil is a symbol attached to a variable name, showing the variable's datatype or scope. The term was first used by Philip Gwyn in 1999 "to mean the funny character at the front of a Perl variable"...
), and global variables in the RubyRuby is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was initially developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...
programming language.
- In most shell script
A shell script is a script written for the shell, or command line interpreter, of an operating system. It is often considered a simple domain-specific programming language...
ing languages, $ is used to interpolate environment variableEnvironment variables are a set of dynamic named values that can affect the way running processes will behave on a computer.-Synopsis:In all Unix and Unix-like systems, each process has its own private set of environment variables...
s, special variables, arithmetic computations and special characters, and to perform translation of localised strings.
- In Unix-like
A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
systems the $ is often part of the command promptCommand Prompt may stand for:* Command line interpreter, a kind of text-based user interface* Command Prompt , the command line interpreter in Windows operating systems...
, depending on the user's shellA shell is a piece of software that provides an interface for users. Typically, the term refers to an operating system shell which provides access to the services of a kernel...
and environment settings. For example, the default environment settings for the bashBash is a free software Unix shell written for the GNU Project. Its name is an acronym which stands for Bourne-again shell. The name is a pun on the name of the Bourne shell , an early and important Unix shell written by Stephen Bourne and distributed with Version 7 Unix circa 1978, and "born...
shell specify $ as part of the command prompt.
- $ is used in the TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth...
typesettingTypesetting involves the presentation of textual material in graphic form on paper or some other medium. Before the advent of desktop publishing, typesetting of printed material was produced in print shops by compositors or typesetters working by hand, and later with machines.The general principle...
language to delimit mathematical regions.
- $ is used by the
prompt command in DOSDOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is a shorthand term for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions Windows 95, 98, and ME.Related systems...
to insert special sequences into the DOS command prompt string.
- Formulas in Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet-application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables and a macro programming language called VBA...
and other spreadsheetA spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper worksheet. It displays multiple cells that together make up a grid consisting of rows and columns, each cell containing either alphanumeric text or numeric values...
s use $ to indicate an absolute cell reference.
- In many versions of FORTRAN 66, $ could be used as an alternative to a quotation mark for delimiting strings.
- In PL/M
The PL/M programming languageis a high-level language developed byGary Kildall in 1972 for Intel for its microprocessors....
, $ can be used to put a visible separation between syllables of identifiers.
For example, 'Some$Name' will refer to the same thing as 'SomeName' in PL/M.
- In the LDAP directory access protocol, $ is used as a line separator in various standard entry attributes such as postalAddress.
- In Haskell
Haskell may refer to:*Haskell , a standardized pure functional programming language with non-strict semantics* Haskell Indian Nations University, a four year degree granting university in Lawrence, Kansas which offers free tuition to members of registered Native American tribes in the United...
, $ is used as a function application operator.
- In Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
, $ is used at the end of the share name to hide a shared folder. For example, \\server\share will be visible and accessible through browsing, while \\server\share$ will only be accessible by explicit reference.
Currencies that use the dollar or peso sign
In addition to those countries of the world that use dollars or
pesoThe word peso was the name of a coin that originated in Spain and became of immense importance internationally. Peso is now the name of the monetary unit of several former Spanish colonies...
s, a number of other countries use the $ symbol to denote their currencies, including:
- Nicaraguan córdoba
The córdoba is the currency of Nicaragua. It is divided into 100 centavos.- History :The first córdoba was introduced on March 20, 1912. It replaced the peso at a rate of 12½ pesos = 1 córdoba & was initially equal to the US dollar...
(usually written as C$)
- Tongan pa'anga
The paanga is the currency of the Tonga. It is controlled by National Reserve Bank of Tonga in Nukualofa. The paanga is not convertible and is pegged to a basket of currencies comprising the Australian, New Zealand, and United States dollars and the Japanese yen.The paanga is subdivided into 100...
Except the
Philippine pesoThe peso is the currency of the Philippines. It is subdivided into 100 centavos or sentimo . Before 1967, the language used on the banknotes and coins was English and so "peso" was the name used...
, whose sign is written as
.
Some currencies use the
cifrãoCifrão is the symbol of the former Portuguese currency , Cape Verdean escudo and Portuguese Timor escudo, that was in use until 1976 . It is still used in Brazil for the Brazilian Real. Its symbol is similar to the dollar sign, but it is always written with two vertical lines, . In the...
, similar to the dollar sign, but always with two strokes:
- Brazilian real
The real is the present-day currency of Brazil and was also the currency during the period 1690 to 1942. When the first real circulated, the plural used was réis. The currently used plural form is reais, with the symbol R$ and ISO 4217 code BRL. The modern real is subdivided into 100 centavos...
- Cape Verde escudo
- Chilean peso
The peso is the currency of Chile. The current peso has circulated since 1975, with a previous version circulating between 1817 and 1960. The symbol used locally for it is $. The ISO 4217 code for the present peso is CLP. It is subdivided into 100 centavos, although no centavo denominated coins...
- Portuguese escudo
The escudo was the currency of Portugal prior to the introduction of the Euro on 1 January 1999 and was removed from circulation on 28 February 2002. The ISO 4217 code of the escudo was PTE. The escudo was subdivided into 100 centavos. Its symbol was the cifrão , similar to the dollar sign, but...
(defunct)
The cifrão is also used to account for over 130,000,000 domestic standard US Mint (1986+) bullion US silver dollars as one dollar per one troy ounce fine (99.9%), thereby avoiding confusion with debased US trade dollar-denominated tokens and Federal Reserve Notes.
In Mexico and another peso users countries, the cifrão is used as a dollar sign when a document uses pesos and dollars at the same time, to avoid confusions, but, when it used alone, usually is represented as $USD (United States Dollars). Example: $5USD (Five dollars)
In the United States, the dollar symbol precedes the number, unlike almost all other units. Five dollars is written and printed as $5, whereas five cents is written as 5¢.