Ampersand symbol

Click the ampersand symbol below to copy it, then paste it anywhere. The ampersand (&) — the world’s and symbol, also called the and sign — is a whole word squeezed into one elegant character: it simply means “and”. People search for it every way imaginable (and symbol, and sign, and the symbol itself), but it is always this one mark: a 1,900-year-old ligature that began life as the Latin word et. Below you will find the plain and symbol text, its styled Unicode cousins, the story behind the strange name, and the codes every web page needs.

Fastest choice: the card above copies the standard ampersand & (U+0026) — plain text that works in names, titles and code.

Copy and paste ampersand symbols

Beyond the everyday &, Unicode keeps a small family: fullwidth and small forms, the turned ampersand ⅋, the ornamental et ligatures, the Greek kai ϗ (that language’s own “and” ligature), and the related per sign. The combos row adds the two things people build by hand: the & + pairing and the old-fashioned &c. (“and so on”).

What the ampersand means — a 1,900-year-old shortcut

Roman scribes wrote fast, and when they wrote the Latin word et (“and”) the two letters melted together — e curling into t — until the joined shape became a character of its own: &. In flowing italic hands you can still see the e and the t hiding inside it. It is not a picture and not an abbreviation added later; the ampersand is literally the word “and” drawn as one glyph, which is why grammar calls it a logogram.

And the name? Schoolchildren once recited the alphabet ending with “…X, Y, Z, and per se and” — Latin for “and, by itself, [means] and”, said because & stood alone as a word. Generations of mumbling slurred “and per se and” into ampersand, and the name stuck by the 1830s. The character was so established that it was traditionally counted as the alphabet’s 27th letter. Its travelling companion, &c., is et cetera written the old way — “and the rest”.

The & font question — why designers judge a typeface by this glyph

Ask a type designer where a font shows its personality and many will point at the ampersand. No other character changes so much between typefaces: in many serif italics the & reverts to a flowing et shape (a curly epsilon-like form), in grotesques it becomes a compact knot, and in display faces it turns into pure ornament. That is why the & font choice can make or break a logo, a wedding invitation or a book cover — the same three-letter word “and” wears a completely different costume in every font. Practical takeaway: there is exactly one ampersand character in your text; the beauty is supplied by the font. For ready-styled text versions you can paste into bios and posts, run your words through our font generator.

Where the ampersand is used — and where it is not

Company and brand names: Johnson & Johnson, H&M, Marks & Spencer — the & is part of the legal name, so it is always correct there.
Titles and headings: “Arts & Entertainment”, “Q&A” — short labels where space is precious.
Programming: a single & is the bitwise AND operator (and the address-of operator in C), while && is the logical AND of conditions — if (a && b). In URLs and HTML the bare & starts parameters and entities, which is why web code writes it as &.
Formal writing: essays and reports spell the word out — “and” — and keep & for names, titles and tables. Using it in running prose is the one place style guides agree it does not belong.

Ampersand codes — Unicode, HTML and CSS

How to type the ampersand

Keyboard: Shift + 7 on US layouts — the & sits above the 7. (Some international layouts place it elsewhere; the Character Map / Character Viewer finds it by the name “ampersand”.)
Windows alternative: Alt + 38 on the numeric keypad, or the Windows key + . picker.
Phone: the symbols keyboard carries & on its first page — or copy it from the grid above in one tap.

Explore more symbols

The ampersand lives in the full punctuation symbols collection, next to its frequent partner the quotation mark symbol — and its styled forms come from the font generator.

Frequently asked questions

What is the & symbol called?

The ampersand. It is also described as the and sign or the and symbol, and its name is a slurred form of the schoolroom phrase “and per se and” — the words children once recited after Z.

What does the ampersand mean?

It means exactly the word “and”. The character is a ligature of the Latin et, drawn as one glyph by Roman scribes and inherited by almost every European alphabet.

Why must I write & in HTML?

Because in HTML the & character starts an entity reference. Writing it as & tells the browser “show a literal ampersand here”; a bare & followed by letters can be misread as an entity and swallow part of your text.

What is the difference between & and && in code?

In most programming languages a single & works on bits or takes an address, while the doubled && is the logical AND that tests two conditions — true only when both sides are true.

Can I use & instead of “and” in an essay?

Style guides say no for running text: spell “and” out in formal writing. The ampersand belongs in proper names (Johnson & Johnson), titles, headings, tables and anywhere it is part of an official name.