Pound Sign
Part of Currency
On Windows, hold Alt and type 0163 on the numeric keypad to insert pound sign.
- Alt code
- Alt+0163
- HTML entity
- £
- Unicode
- U+00A3
About this symbol
The pound sign is a decorated capital L, from libra, the Latin word for a pound weight. The same root gave the old British money its name: pounds, shillings and pence, written £sd. The crossbar shows that the letter is an abbreviation.
In American English, “pound sign” usually means the number sign #, a different character.
Unicode facts
- Official name
- POUND SIGN
- Also called
- Pound sterling, Irish punt, lira, etc.
- Type
- Currency symbol
- Unicode block
- Latin-1 Supplement
- Unicode group
- Latin-1 punctuation and symbols
- Added in
- Unicode 1.1 (1993)
- Unicode notes
- Not to be confused with the unit of weight
- Glyph may have one or two crossbars, in distinction from 20A4
Click the symbol or any value at the top of the page to copy it. See the full Currency chart for related characters.