At symbol
The at symbol @ is the hardest-working squiggle in modern life: it addresses every email, names every handle and still does its original job on invoices as the at the rate symbol โ “10 tickets @ $5” means ten, at the rate of five each. Copy it here in both widths, with its story.
Copy the at sign
The @ at work, ready to copy
What @ has meant, era by era
| Era | The job |
|---|---|
| Ledgers, centuries old | “At the rate of” in accounting โ quantity @ unit price; possibly older still as a wine-measure mark (the Italian amphora theory) |
| 1971 | Ray Tomlinson needs a separator for networked email and picks the keyboard’s one unused symbol that literally says “at”: user@host is born |
| Social era | The handle and the mention: @name addresses a person publicly, @everyone addresses the room |
| Around the world | Nicknamed the snail (Italy), the monkey’s tail (Netherlands), the dog (Russia), the strudel (Israel) โ no other symbol collected so many pets |
Tomlinson’s choice stuck because the meaning was already inside the sign: an email address is a person at a place. The fullwidth ๏ผ exists for East Asian typesetting, where characters sit on a square grid โ same sign, wider seat.
How to type it
| Layout | Keys |
|---|---|
| US keyboard | Shift + 2 |
| UK keyboard | Shift + ‘ (the apostrophe key) โ the classic transatlantic mix-up with “ |
| European layouts | AltGr + 2, or Ctrl + Alt + @ where printed |
| Windows, any layout | Alt + 64 on the numeric keypad; HTML: the “commat” entity (ampersand + commat;) or code 64 |
Explore more
The handle culture around @ is styled on the username symbols page, the mark’s formal neighbour is the ampersand symbol โ the other ligature that escaped the ledger โ and every sign’s name is listed in the symbol names and meanings guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is @ called in English?
Simply “at” โ read aloud as the word: name@example.com is “name at example dot com”. Unicode’s formal name for it is “commercial at”, a nod to its accounting birth.
What does “at the rate” mean on an invoice?
Unit pricing: “50 chairs @ $12” = fifty chairs at the rate of twelve dollars each, $600 total. The usage predates email by centuries and never left the ledger.
Why did email choose @?
In 1971 Ray Tomlinson needed a character that appeared in no name and no host โ and @ was sitting unused on the teletype keyboard while literally meaning “at”. One keystroke, perfect sense; the rest is infrastructure.
How do I type @ on a UK keyboard?
Shift and the apostrophe key (right of the semicolon). US keyboards keep it on Shift+2 โ which is why swapped ” and @ characters are the classic sign of a layout mismatch.
Is ๏ผ a different symbol?
No โ the fullwidth form (U+FF20) is the same commercial at, drawn wide for East Asian text grids. In email addresses and handles, always use the ordinary @.