We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
Two unrelated characters that share the spoken name 'pound', which is why a British reader and an American reader can be talking about entirely different keys.
They are not variants of each other. # is the number sign — hash, hashtag, and the 'pound key' on a North American telephone keypad. £ is the pound sterling currency sign, from the Latin libra. The only thing they share is the word people say out loud.
Both are called 'pound' in different contexts; they are unrelated characters.
Drawn from the visual attributes recorded for each symbol. Only traits the two records disagree about are listed.
| Trait | Number sign | Pound sign |
|---|---|---|
| Built from | lines and dots | letter like |
| Symmetry | point | none |
| Number sign | Pound sign | |
|---|---|---|
| What it identifies | A number, a topic tag, or a telephone key | An amount of money in pounds |
| Where the name comes from | 'Pound' as a weight abbreviation, via US telephone usage | Latin 'libra pondo', a pound weight |
| Unicode | U+0023 | U+00A3 |
| Shape | Two horizontal and two vertical strokes forming a grid | A looping capital L crossed by one stroke |
| Also confused with | The musical sharp sign, which slants the opposite strokes | Nothing common — the confusion runs one way, through the name |
| Relationship (from Symbolwise's records) | Commonly confused with Pound sign — Both are called 'pound' in different contexts; they are unrelated characters. | Commonly confused with Number sign — Both are called 'pound'; they are unrelated characters. |
Unicode Code Chart: Basic Latin (U+0000–U+007F)
The Unicode Consortium · retrieved 2026-07-30
Authoritative for the character's code point, name and block only. Unicode assigns identity; it does not define what a symbol means in use.
Unicode Code Chart: Latin-1 Supplement (U+0080–U+00FF)
The Unicode Consortium · retrieved 2026-07-30
Authoritative for the character's code point, name and block only. Unicode assigns identity; it does not define what a symbol means in use.
Wikipedia · retrieved 2026-07-30
Tertiary reference. Used for widely-agreed identity and origin summary, not for contested detail or exact dates.
Wikipedia · retrieved 2026-07-30
Tertiary reference. Used for widely-agreed identity and origin summary, not for contested detail or exact dates.
Look at which strokes slant. The musical sharp has upright verticals and horizontals that slant slightly upward; the number sign is the other way round, with slanted verticals and level horizontals. They are separate Unicode characters — U+266F and U+0023 — and text search, sorting and filenames all treat them as different.
The character is one thing; what reads it decides the meaning. Before a word on social media it makes a tag. Before a numeral it means 'number'. At the start of a line in a shell script, Python or most configuration formats it means everything after it is a comment and is ignored. A hash inside a string is none of these.
Both are drawn as one continuous decorative stroke with a closed loop and a tail that crosses back over itself, which is why a description of the shape alone reaches both. The clef is far taller, spans a stave, and its spiral encircles one specific line — that encircled line is the note G, and it is the only reason the shape is drawn where it is.
The ampersand is a ligature of the Latin word et, still visible in some italic forms where the e and the t can be picked out. The Tironian et is a separate mark descending from a Roman shorthand, shaped like a small seven, and it is in daily public use in Ireland as the written form of 'agus'. A reader who knows only the ampersand takes the other for a numeral, which on a bilingual road sign produces a confidently wrong place name.