What is the name of the symbol in the picture?

The tilde is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish and from Portuguese, which in turn came from the Latin titulus, meaning "title" or "superscription".

This symbol (in English) informally means "approximately", "about", or "around", such as "~30 minutes before", meaning "approximately 30 minutes before". It can mean "similar to", including "of the same order of magnitude as", such as: "x ~ y" meaning that x and y are of the same order of magnitude.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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40 Comments

Leda Beck

In Spanish and Porrtuguese, the tilde acquired importance in the language during the Middle Ages, when parchment was very expensive, and scribes had to find ways to save space. For example: the word "ambos" means "both"; it could be written "ãbos" in Medieval Portuguese, considering "am" was much longer (thus used more parchment) than "ã". It came to represent all nasal sounds in the language, such as "não" (no) or "pão" (bread), or "anciões" (old men). Same process probably occurred in Spanish. Curiously, though, the Spanish sound "ñ" is represented by two letters in Portuguese (nh) and in French and Italian (gn)! :)

Alfredo Rivas Lairet

La tilde es el signo que se usa en la escritura para determinar o señalar la acentuación de las palabras, en otras palabras, es un acento. También se llama tilde la virgulilla que se coloca sobre la ene para transformarla en eñe. Saludos.

Joanne Serin

It's a diacritical mark in español / Spanish to indicate that the letter n is to be pronounced "nya", also called "enye". I thought this was the most common usage. At least, it's the one I'm most familiar with, along with approximately. I'm surprised it wasn't part of the explanation.

Chris Brown

This question deals with language and accents. I think this shouldn't belong in a science category. It's a good question though.

Albert

How does it relates to science?🤔

wandajaneburlinson

The tilde is used extensively in Spanish.

Speedy

...never use it...

Marlene O'Malley

I only wish computer programmers would learn to program an apostrophe in their database - since I have one in my name and it DOES have a meaning! My name is not omalley or Malley...it is O’Malley!!!