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Square brackets with the top or bottom serifs removed, marking rounding direction.
Also known as: Floor function brackets, Ceiling function brackets, Rounding brackets, Integer part notation
Floor and ceiling brackets are square brackets with half their serifs removed, and which half is missing says which way the number is rounded. Floor brackets keep only the bottom serifs and round down to the nearest whole number below; ceiling brackets keep only the top serifs and round up. The mnemonic is in the shape: the surviving serifs point towards the direction of rounding, so the notation carries its own instruction.
Round a number to a whole number, and the direction is encoded in the shape: only the bottom serifs survive on the floor brackets, which round down, and only the top serifs on the ceiling brackets, which round up.
Contexts: Mathematics, Software
Are not the same as rounding to the nearest whole number, which has no bracket notation of its own: floor and ceiling always go the same way regardless of how close the number is to either end.
Contexts: Mathematics, Software
A pair of tall vertical strokes with a short horizontal foot at the bottom only, or a short horizontal cap at the top only, standing one on each side of an expression.
Both are pairs of vertical strokes flanking an expression.