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An S crossed by one or two vertical strokes, used for dollar and peso currencies.
Also known as: Peso sign, Buck symbol, Money sign
The dollar sign marks dollar and peso currencies in many countries, not only the United States. Its origin is generally traced to the Spanish-American peso, though the details are debated.
Introduces variables in several programming languages and shell environments, a convention unrelated to money.
Contexts: Software
Marks an amount in a dollar or peso currency — used by many countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, Mexico and Argentina, often with a prefix letter to distinguish them.
The sign identifies a family of currencies, not a single country. US$, CA$ and A$ disambiguate where context does not.
Contexts: Software
Is generally traced to the Spanish-American peso and abbreviations used in colonial commerce; competing accounts exist and the specific derivation is not settled.
Popular explanations involving a US monogram are widely repeated but not established. Recorded here as contested rather than resolved.
18th century onward · Contexts: Software
Is drawn with one stroke or two and neither is more correct. The two-bar form is older in some typefaces and the single-bar form dominates in modern type; the count carries no meaning and does not distinguish one country's dollar from another's. Where a currency needs distinguishing, a letter prefix does it — US$, A$, CA$ — or the three-letter ISO code.
Related forms that are not treated as separate canonical symbols — see our variant rules.
Single-stroke form
One vertical stroke through the S. The dominant form in modern typefaces and in most screen rendering.
Double-stroke form
Two parallel strokes through the S, common in older type and still used by some foundries. Not a different currency and not a different sign.
A letter S with one or two vertical strokes running through it.
The same character. In a regular expression it anchors a pattern to the end of a line and has nothing to do with money.