$

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See also: Appendix:Variations of "s", , , , Ֆ, ֆ, , and

$ U+0024, $
DOLLAR SIGN
#
Basic Latin %

Translingual

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

Description

An S-shape with one or, in some typefaces, two vertical lines crossing it completely. See for the usage with explicitly two lines.

Etymology

$ appears to have evolved circa 1775 in the United States from a common abbreviation for pesos, also known as piastres or pieces of eight, a P/raised-S ligature PS.[1] It was used in the US before the adoption of the dollar in 1785.[2]

The "computing" sense is the result of homophony between English cache and cash, dollars being a form of cash.

Noun

$

  1. money
    1. dollar
    • 1977, advertisement page in Uncanny X-Men, #106, page 8
      Fool all your friends. You'll get a Million $$$ worth of laughs with these exact reproductions of old U. S. Gold Banknotes (1840).
    1. peso
    2. escudo
    3. pataca
  2. (computing) cache

Derived terms

  • (money):
    • $$$ ((rating) expensive)
    • English: $$$ (large amount of money), O$P$ (owe money, pay money)
  • (cache): English: D$ (data cache), I$ (instruction cache)

Letter

$

  1. A substitute for the letter S, used as a symbol of money or perceived greed in business practices.
    Micro$oft Window$
    • 1971 February 26, “Motor City: March Special” (advertisement), in The Daily Herald-Tribune, volume 58, number 168 (in English), Grande Prairie: Bowes Publishers Limited, After Hours, page 2:
      BE SAFE - BE SURE ¶ Come in NOW and $AVE
    • 2015, “Pixtopia”, in Star vs. the Forces of Evil, season 1, episode 6b (in English):
      [the text below is written on-screen in large letters, once Marco reveals his "emergency cash stash] Marco'$ emergency ca$h $ta$h
  2. A substitute for the letter S, used as a censored or filter-avoidance spelling.
    $h!tshit

Derived terms

  • (money or greed): English: CO$ (Church of Scientology); Micro$oft, M$, M$FT (Microsoft); $cientology (Scientology)
  • (censored or filter-avoidance): English: @$$ (ass), le$bian (lesbian)

Symbol

$

  1. A currency sign for the dollar, peso, and pataca.
  2. An unofficial currency sign for the escudo.
  3. (programming) Prefix indicating a variable in some languages, such as Perl, PHP, or shell scripts.

Usage notes

When used as a currency symbol, $ precedes the number it qualifies in English, despite being pronounced second. For example, "$1" is read as one dollar, not dollar one unlike the usage in languages such as French or German: "1 $", "2,50 $".

When used for the Portuguese escudo, $ is placed between the escudos and centavos, e.g. 2$50. The official symbol for the escudo is (with two bars), but that form is unified with the single-bar form in Unicode. A single-bar dollar sign is frequently employed in its place even for official purposes.

Derived terms

currency
  • A$ (Australian dollar)
  • AU$ (Australian dollar)
  • C$ (córdoba)
  • C$ (Canadian dollar; Confederate dollar) (English)
  • NT$ (New Taiwan dollar)
  • NZ$ (New Zealand dollar)
  • R$ (Brazilian real)
  • U$ (United States dollar) (English)
  • US$ (United States dollar) (English)
  • (variable): English: $DEITY (generic deity)

See also

Currency signs

Formerly used currency signs

References

  1. ^ Florian Cajori (1993) A history of mathematical notations
  2. ^ “Origin of the $ Sign”, in US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 2009 May 22 (last accessed), archived from the original on 2007-09-28