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A crossed, looping L, marking pound sterling and other pound currencies.
Also known as: Sterling sign, Pound sterling symbol, Quid symbol
The pound sign marks pound currencies, principally sterling. It derives from a handwritten capital L for the Latin 'libra', a unit of weight that became a unit of money.
Marks an amount in pounds sterling, and in other pound currencies such as the Egyptian and Lebanese pound.
Contexts: Software
Derives from a handwritten capital L for the Latin 'libra pondo', a pound weight — the same root that gives the abbreviation lb.
Contexts: Software
Shares the spoken name 'pound' with the number sign on North American telephone keypads, though the two are unrelated characters.
Contexts: Software
Is a letter L. It descends from libra, the Roman pound weight, written as an italic L with a crossbar to mark it as an abbreviation — the same ancestry as the pound weight abbreviation lb. The crossbar is the abbreviation stroke rather than decoration.
From Roman usage through medieval accounting · Contexts: History, Software
Shares its English name with a completely different mark. In American usage 'the pound sign' commonly means the hash or number sign on a telephone keypad, so a reader asking for the pound sign may be looking for either — which is a naming collision rather than an ambiguity in either symbol.
United Kingdom and United States · Contexts: Software
Related forms that are not treated as separate canonical symbols — see our variant rules.
Double-bar form
Two crossbars rather than one, standard in older British typefaces and still used on some banknotes and formal stationery.
A looping capital L crossed by one horizontal stroke.
Both are called 'pound'; they are unrelated characters.