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.
An arrow leaving a circle, marking the escape key.
Also known as: Esc key, Cancel key, Arrow out of circle
The escape symbol marks the key that cancels or backs out. The key began as a way of telling a terminal that the characters following it were commands rather than text.
Marks the escape key, which cancels the current action, closes a dialog, or backs out of a mode.
Contexts: Software
Originates in terminal control, where an escape character told the receiving device that what followed was a command rather than text to print — the sense preserved in the term 'escape sequence'.
Teleprinter and terminal era onward · Contexts: Software
Descends from the ASCII escape character, whose job was to say 'what follows is not text but an instruction'. That is why the key has no single meaning: it was never a command in itself, only a way of starting one, and each program decided what it should do — cancel, close, go up a level, leave full screen.
1960s onward · Contexts: Software
Related forms that are not treated as separate canonical symbols — see our variant rules.
Unicode ESCAPE control picture
U+241B, the printable stand-in for the control character rather than a keycap marking.
A small arrow pointing up and to the left, leaving an open circle behind it.