The tilde (
in the American Heritage dictionary), or , is a
grapheme
In linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language
A language is a structured system of communication used by humans, including speech (spoken language), gestures (Signed language, sign language) and writing. Most langu ...

with several uses. The name of the character came into English from
Spanish
Spanish may refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards, a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Canada
* Spanish River (disambiguation), the name of several ...

and
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portug ...

, which in turn came from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language
A classical language is a language
A language is a structured system of communication
Communication (from Latin ''communicare'', meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is "an appa ...

''
titulus
Titulus, the Latin word for "title", "label" or "inscription" (plural ''tituli'', normally italicized), may or may not be italicized as a foreign word, and may refer to:
* ''Titulus'', or Titular church, one of a group of Early Christian churches ...
'', meaning "title" or "superscription".
[
]
Origin
It was originally written over an omitted letter or several letters as a scribal abbreviation
Scribal abbreviations or ''sigla'' ( singular: ''siglum'') are the abbreviation
An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters, or wor ...
, or "mark of suspension" and "mark of contraction", shown as a straight line when used with capitals. Thus, the commonly used words ''Anno Domini
The terms (AD) and before Christ (BC) are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the used in most of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by as a modification of the , r ...
'' were frequently abbreviated to ''Ao Dñi'', with an elevated terminal with a suspension mark placed over the "n". Such a mark could denote the omission of one letter or several letters. This saved on the expense of the scribe's labour and the cost of vellum and ink. Medieval European charters written in Latin are largely made up of such abbreviated words with suspension marks and other abbreviations; only uncommon words were given in full.
The tilde has since been applied to a number of other uses as a diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph
The term glyph is used in typography
File:metal movable type.jpg, 225px, Movable type being assembled on a composing stick using pieces that ...
mark or a character in its own right. These are encoded in Unicode
Unicode, formally the Unicode Standard, is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expressed in most of the world's wri ...

with many precomposed characters as well as individually at and , and there are additional similar characters for different roles. In lexicography
Lexicography is the study of lexicon
A lexicon is the vocabulary
A vocabulary, also known as a wordstock or word-stock, is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful a ...

, the latter kind of tilde and the swung dash
Swing or swinging may refer to:
Apparatus
* Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth
* Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus
* Sex swing, a type of harness for sexual intercourse
* Swing ride, an amusement park ride consistin ...
, , are used in dictionaries to indicate the omission of the entry word.
History
Use by medieval scribes
The text of the Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) was a form of the English language spoken after the Norman conquest of England, Norman conquest (1066) until the late 15th century. The English language underwent ...
of 1086, relating for example, to the manor of Molland
The Manor of Molland was a Middle ages, medieval manorialism, manor in North Devon, England. It was largely co-terminous with the existing parish of Molland, in which is situated the village of Molland. More accurately it consisted from the ea ...
in Devon
Devon (, archaically known as Devonshire) is a county
A county is a geographical region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary
The ''Chambers Dictionary'' (''TCD'') was first published by William Ch ...

(see adjacent picture), is highly abbreviated
An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters, or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
as indicated by numerous tildes.
The text with abbreviations expanded is as follows:
Role of mechanical typewriters
The incorporation of the tilde into ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding
In computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the stu ...
is a direct result of its appearance as a distinct character on Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portug ...
mechanical typewriters
File:Typewriter.ogv, Video showing the operation of a typewriter
A typewriter is a machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of Button (control), keys, and each one causes a dif ...

in the late nineteenth century. This symbol did not exist independently as a type
Type may refer to:
Science and technology Computing
* Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc.
* Data type, collection of values used for computations.
* File type
* TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file.
* Type ...
or hot-lead printing character.
On typewriters designed for languages that routinely use diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph
The term glyph is used in typography
File:metal movable type.jpg, 225px, Movable type being assembled on a composing stick using pieces that ...
s (accent marks), a dead key
A dead key is a special kind of a modifier key
In computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes and development of ...
mechanism was provided: a mark is made when a dead key is typed but, unlike normal keys, the paper carriage does not move on. To achieve an accented letter, the typist first typed the desired diacritic, then typed the letter to be accented. Since the diacritic key a 'dead key' had not moved the paper on, the letter was printed under the previously-printed accent. To add a diacritic to a capital letter on some typewriters, the upper-case levatedversion of the accent could be produced using plus the diacritic key. On others, however, the typebar
A typewriter is a mechanical
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Mechanical system
A machine is any physical system with ordered structural and functional properties. It may represent human-made or naturally occurring device molecula ...
had two different diacritics so that users could only add accents to lower-case letters without manual intervention or other adjustment.
For most Western European languages, the only diacritics used are acute
Acute may refer to:
Science and technology
* Acute angle
** Acute triangle
** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology#acute, glossary of leaf morphology
* Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset.
...

(), grave
A grave is a location where a dead body
A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and award ...

(, circumflex
The circumflex is a diacritic in the Latin script, Latin and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts that is used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and Transcription (linguistics), transcription schemes. It received its E ...
() and diaeresis (or umlaut, ): early typewriters for the European market included these as dead keys. Spanish and Portuguese uniquely use the tilde diacritic. In modern Spanish, the tilde accent is needed only for the characters and . Both were precomposed as distinct graphemes and assigned to a single typebar, which sacrificed a key that was felt to be less important, usually the key. Portuguese, however, has two: and . Whereas it was just about possible to find one low-use key to sacrifice for Spanish, to find two sacrificial keys for Portuguese was impractical. Instead a single key was changed to a tilde dead key and was born as a distinct grapheme
In linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language
A language is a structured system of communication used by humans, including speech (spoken language), gestures (Signed language, sign language) and writing. Most langu ...

.
The centralized ASCII tilde
ASCII incorporated many of the overprinting lower-case diacritics from typewriters, including tilde. Overprinting was intended to work by putting a backspace
Backspace () is the keyboard key that originally pushed the typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Mechanical system
A machine is any physical system with ordered structural and functional properti ...

code between the codes for letter and diacritic. However even at that time, mechanisms that could do this or any other overprinting were not widely available, did not work for capital letters, and were impossible on video displays, with the result that this concept failed to gain significant acceptance. Consequently, many of these diacritics (and the underscore
Underscored or underlined text.
An underscore, also called an underline, low line or low dash, is a line drawn under a segment of text. In proofreading
Proofreading is the reading (activity), reading of a galley proof or an electronic copy of ...

) were quickly reused by software as additional syntax, basically becoming new types of syntactic symbols that a programming language could use. As this usage became predominant, type design
Type design is the art and process of designing typeface
A typeface is the design of lettering
Lettering is an umbrella term
In linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of language. It encompasses the analysis of e ...
gradually evolved so these diacritic characters became larger and more vertically centered, making them useless as overprinted diacritics but much easier to read as free-standing characters that had come to be used for entirely different and novel purposes.
Connection to Spanish
As indicated by the etymological origin of the word "tilde" in English, this symbol has been closely associated with the Spanish language
Spanish ( or , ) is a Romance language
The Romance languages, less commonly Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin is a range of inform ...

. The connection stems from the use of the tilde above the letter to form the (different) letter in Spanish, a feature shared by only a few other languages, most of which are historically connected to Spanish. This peculiarity can help non-native speakers quickly identify a text as being written in Spanish with little chance of error. In addition, most native speakers, although not all
Not or NOT may refer to:
Language
* Not, the general declarative form of yes and no, "no", indicating a negation of a related statement that it usually precedes
* ... Not!, a grammatical construct used as a contradiction, popularized in the early 1 ...
, use the word to refer to their language. Particularly during the 1990s, Spanish-speaking intellectuals and news outlets demonstrated support for the language and the culture by defending this letter against globalisation
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English
The use of the English language
English is a of the , originally spoken by the inhabitants of . It is named after the , one of the ancient that migrated from , a peninsu ...
and computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. Modern computers can perform generic sets of operations known as Computer program, programs. These ...

isation trends that threatened to remove it from keyboards and other standardised products and codes. The Instituto Cervantes
Instituto Cervantes (the Cervantes Institute) is a worldwide non-profit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616), the author of ''Don Quixote'' and perhaps the most important figur ...

, founded by Spain's government to promote the Spanish language internationally, chose as its logo a highly stylised with a large tilde. The 24-hour news channel CNN
The Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news-based pay television
Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription
The ...

in the US later adopted a similar strategy on its existing logo for the launch of its . And similarly to the National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the four major professional sports leagu ...
(NBA), the Spain men's national basketball team
The Spain men's national basketball team ( es, link=no, Selección Española de Baloncesto) represents Spain
,
* gl, Reino de España,
* oc, Reiaume d'Espanha,
,
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de Es ...
is nicknamed "ÑBA".
In Spanish itself the word is used more generally for diacritics, including the stress-marking acute accent. The diacritic is more commonly called or , and is not considered an accent mark in Spanish, but rather simply a part of the letter (much like the dot
''The Dot'' is a 2003 picture book written and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds about a girl named Vashti who discovers her artistic talent. It is published by Candlewick Press.
Plot
Vashti is a girl who says she cannot draw. Her teacher says a ...
over makes an character that is familiar to readers of English).
Usage
Common use
This symbol (in US 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
An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm
In mathematics
Mathematics (from Greek: ) includes the study of such topics as numbers ( and ), formulas and related structures (), shapes and spaces in which they are contain ...
as", such as "" meaning that and are of the same order of magnitude. Another approximation symbol is the double tilde , meaning "approximately equal to". The tilde is also used to indicate congruence
Congruence may refer to:
Mathematics
* Congruence (geometry), being the same size and shape
* Congruence or congruence relation, in abstract algebra, an equivalence relation on an algebraic structure that is compatible with the structure
* In modu ...
of shapes by placing it over an symbol, thus .
In Japanese it is used in to indicate a range or interval: 5〜10 means between 5 and 10.
In the computing field, especially in Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser
Multi-user software is computer software
Software is a collection of Instruction (computer science), instructions that tell a computer how to work. This is in contrast t ...

-based systems, the tilde indicates the user's home directory.
In more recent digital usage, tildes on either side of a word or phrase have sometimes come to convey a particular tone that "let the enclosed words perform both sincerity and irony", which can pre-emptively defuse a negative reaction. For example, BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''inte ...
journalist Joseph Bernstein interprets the tildes in the following tweet:
:"in the ~ spirit of the season ~ will now link to some of the (imho) #Bestof2014 sports reads. if you hate nice things, mute that hashtag."
as a way of making it clear that both the author and reader are aware that the enclosed phrase – "spirit of the season" – "is cliche and we know this quality is beneath our author, and we don't want you to think our author is a cliche person generally".
Diacritical use
In some languages, the tilde is a diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph
The term glyph is used in typography
File:metal movable type.jpg, 225px, Movable type being assembled on a composing stick using pieces that ...
mark placed over a letter
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet)
A letter is a segmental symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, Object (philosophy ...
to indicate a change in its pronunciation:
Pitch
The tilde was firstly used in the polytonic orthography
Greek orthographyThe orthography of the Greek language ultimately has its roots in the adoption of the Greek alphabet in the 9th century BC. Some time prior to that, one early form of Greek, Mycenaean language, Mycenaean, was written in Linear ...
of Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language
Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the diale ...
, as a variant of the circumflex
The circumflex is a diacritic in the Latin script, Latin and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts that is used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and Transcription (linguistics), transcription schemes. It received its E ...
, representing a rise in pitch
Pitch may refer to:
Acoustic frequency
* Pitch (music), the perceived frequency of sound including "definite pitch" and "indefinite pitch"
** Absolute pitch or "perfect pitch"
** Pitch class, a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves ...
followed by a return to standard pitch.
Abbreviation
Later, it was used to make abbreviations
An abbreviation (from Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken in the area around Rome, known as Latium. Through the power of t ...
in medieval Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken in the area around Rome, known as Latium. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became ...
documents. When an or followed a vowel, it was often omitted, and a tilde (physically, a small ) was placed over the preceding vowel to indicate the missing letter; this is the origin of the use of tilde to indicate nasalization (compare as an abbreviation of .) The practice of using the tilde over a vowel to indicate omission of an or continued in printed books in as a means of reducing text length until the 17th century. It was also used in Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portug ...

, and Spanish
Spanish may refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards, a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Canada
* Spanish River (disambiguation), the name of several ...

.
The tilde was also used occasionally to make other abbreviations, such as over the letter , making , to signify the word ''que'' ("that").
Nasalization
It is also as a small that the tilde originated when written above other letters, marking a Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken in the area around Rome, known as Latium. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became ...
which had been elided
In linguistics, an elision or deletion is broadly defined as the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, it is also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are r ...
in old Galician-Portuguese. In modern Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portug ...

it indicates nasalization
In phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, meaning that it is a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise study of language. Linguistics encompasses the analysis of eve ...
of the base vowel: "hand", from Lat. ''manu-''; "reasons", from Lat. . This usage has been adopted in the orthographies of several native languages of South America, such as Guarani and Nheengatu, as well as in the International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written symbols
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word
In linguistics, a word of a spoken language can be defined as the smallest s ...
(IPA) and many other phonetic alphabets. For example, is the IPA transcription of the pronunciation of the French place-name ''Lyon
Lyon or Lyons (, , ; frp, Liyon, ) is the third-largest city and second-largest urban area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône
The Rhône ( , ; german: Rhone ; wae, Rotten ; it, Rodano ; frp, Rôno ; oc, ...

''.
In Breton
Breton most often refers to:
*anything associated with Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula and cultural region in the west of France, covering the western part ...
, the symbol after a vowel means that the letter serves only to give the vowel a nasalised pronunciation, without being itself pronounced, as it normally is. For example, gives the pronunciation whereas gives .
In the DMG romanization of Tunisian Arabic
Tunisian Arabic, or simply Tunisian, is a set of dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, l ...
, the tilde is used for nasal vowels õ and ṏ.
Palatal n
The tilded (, ) developed from the digraph in Spanish. In this language, is considered a separate letter called '''' (), rather than a letter-diacritic combination; it is placed in Spanish dictionaries between the letters and . In Spanish, the word ''tilde'' actually refers to diacritics in general, e.g. the acute accent in ''José'', while the diacritic in is called "virgulilla" (). Current languages in which the tilded () is used for the palatal nasal
The voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the fro ...

consonant include
* Asturian
* Aymara
Aymara may refer to:
Languages and people
* Aymaran languages
Aymaran (also Jaqi or Aru) is one of the two dominant language families in the central Andes alongside Quechua languages, Quechuan. The family consists of Aymara language, Aymara, wi ...
* Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques
The Basques ( or ; eu, euskaldunak ; es, vascos ; french: basques ) are a Southern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a Basque culture, common culture and shared genetic ancestry to th ...
* ChamorroChamorro may refer to:
* Chamorro language, an Austronesian language indigenous to The Marianas
* Chamorro people, the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands in the Western Pacific
* Chamorro Party, a 19th-century Portuguese political party (See L ...
* Filipino
Filipino may refer to:
* Something from or related to the Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas or ''Filipinas'' ), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, ...
* GalicianGalician may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Galicia (Spain)
** Galician language
** Galician people
** Gallaeci, a large Celtic tribal federation who inhabited Gallaecia (currently Galicia (Spain)
* Something of, from, or related to ...
* Guaraní
* Iñupiaq
* Mapudungun
Mapuche () or Mapudungun (from ' 'land' and ' 'speak, speech') is an Araucanian language related to Huilliche
The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile
Chile ...

* Papiamento
Papiamento () or Papiamentu (; nl, Papiaments) is a Spanish
Spanish may refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards, a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontar ...
* Quechua
Quechua may refer to:
*Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru
*Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language
**Sou ...
* Spanish
Spanish may refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards, a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Canada
* Spanish River (disambiguation), the name of several ...

* Tetum
Tetum ( pt, Tetum ,; tet, Tetun ) is an Austronesian language
The Austronesian languages (, , , ) are a language family
A language family is a group of language
A language is a structured system of communication
Communicati ...
* Wolof
Tone
In Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Oversea ...

, a tilde over a vowel represents a creaky rising tone
Tone may refer to:
Color-related
* Tone, mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory
* Tone, the lightness
Lightness is a visual perception of the luminance (L) of an object. It is often judged relative to a similarly lit object. ...
(''ngã''). Letters with the tilde are not considered separate letters of the Vietnamese alphabet
The Vietnamese alphabet ( vi, chữ Quốc ngữ, "script of the national language") is the modern Latin writing script or writing system for Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast ...
.
International Phonetic Alphabet
In phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, meaning that it is a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise study of language. Linguistics encompasses the analysis of every aspect of lang ...

, a tilde is used as a diacritic that is placed above a letter, below it or superimpose
Superimposition is the placement of one thing over another, typically so that both are still evident.
Graphics
In graphics
Graphics (from Greek ''graphikos'', "belonging to drawing") are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a ...
d onto the middle of it:
* A tilde above a letter indicates nasalization
In phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, meaning that it is a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise study of language. Linguistics encompasses the analysis of eve ...
, e.g. .
* A tilde superimposed onto the middle of a letter indicates velarization
Velarization is a secondary articulation
In phonetics, secondary articulation occurs when the articulation of a consonant is equivalent to the combined articulations of two or three simpler consonants, at least one of which is an approximant ...
or pharyngealization
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation
In phonetics, secondary articulation occurs when the articulation of a consonant is equivalent to the combined articulations of two or three simpler consonants, at least one of which is an approximant ...

, e.g. . If no precomposed Unicode
Unicode, formally the Unicode Standard, is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expressed in most of the world's wri ...

character exists, the Unicode character can be used to generate one.
* A tilde below a letter indicates laryngealisation, e.g. . If no precomposed Unicode character exists, the Unicode character can be used to generate one.
Letter extension
In Estonian
Estonian may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe
*Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent
*Estonian language
*Estonian cuisine
*Estonian culture
See also
*
* La ...
, the symbol stands for the close-mid back unrounded vowel
The close-mid back unrounded vowel, or high-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel
A vowel is a Syllable, syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech s ...
, and it is considered an independent letter.
Other uses
Some languages and alphabets use the tilde for other purposes:
* : A symbol resembling the tilde () is used over the letter () to become , denoting a long sound.
* Guaraní: The tilded (note that with tilde is not available as a precomposed glyph in Unicode
Unicode, formally the Unicode Standard, is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expressed in most of the world's wri ...

) stands for the velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonant
In articulatory phonetics
The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics that studies articulation and ways that humans ...

consonant. Also, the tilded () stands for the nasalized upper central rounded vowel . Munduruku
The Munduruku, also known as Mundurucu or Wuy Jugu or
BMJ, are an indigenous people of Brazil living in the Amazon River
The Amazon River (, ; es, Río Amazonas, pt, Rio Amazonas) in South America
South America is a continent ent ...
, Parintintín, and two older spellings of Filipino words also use .
* Syriac script
The Syriac alphabet ( ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic languages, Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares ...
: A tilde (~) under the letter ''Kaph
Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh letter
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet)
A letter is a segmental symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is unde ...

'' represents a sound, transliterated as ''ch'' or ''č''.
* Estonian
Estonian may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe
*Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent
*Estonian language
*Estonian cuisine
*Estonian culture
See also
*
* La ...
and Võro use the tilde above the letter o (õ) to indicate the vowel , a rare sound among languages.
* Unicode
Unicode, formally the Unicode Standard, is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expressed in most of the world's wri ...

has a combining vertical tilde character: . It is used to indicate middle tone in linguistic transcription of certain dialects of the Lithuanian language.
Precomposed Unicode characters
The following letters using the tilde as a diacritic exist as precomposed or Combining character, combining Unicode characters:
Punctuation
The tilde is used in various ways in punctuation:
Range
In some languages (though not generally in English), a tilde-like wavy dash may be used as punctuation (instead of an unspaced hyphen, en dash or em dash) between two numbers, to indicate a Interval (mathematics), range rather than subtraction or a hyphenated number (such as a part number or model number). For example, "12~15" means "12 to 15", "~3" means "up to three", and "100~" means "100 and greater". Languages of East Asia, East Asian languages almost always use this convention, but it is often done for clarity in some other languages as well. Chinese language, Chinese uses the wavy dash and full-width em dash interchangeably for this purpose. In English, the tilde is often used to express ranges and model numbers in electronics, but rarely in formal grammar or in type-set documents, as a wavy dash preceding a number sometimes represents an approximation (see below).
Approximation
Before a number the tilde can mean 'approximately'; '~42' means 'approximately 42'. When used with currency symbols that precede the number (national conventions differ), the tilde precedes the symbol, thus for example '~$10' means 'about ten dollars'.
The symbols ≈ (almost equal to) and ≅ (approximately equal to) are among the other approximation#Unicode, symbols used to express approximation.
Japanese
The is used for various purposes in Japanese, including to denote ranges of numbers, in place of dashes or brackets, and to indicate origin. The wave dash is also used to separate a title and a subtitle in the same line, as a Colon (punctuation), colon is used in English.
When used in conversations via email or instant messenger it may be used as a sarcasm mark.
The sign is used as a replacement for the Chōonpu, chouon, katakana character, in Japanese, extending the final syllable.
=Unicode and Shift JIS encoding of wave dash
=
In practice the , Unicode U+FF5E, is often used instead of the , Unicode U+301C, because the Shift JIS code for the wave dash, 0x8160, which is supposed to be mapped to U+301C, is instead mapped to U+FF5E in code page 932 (Microsoft Windows), Windows code page 932 (Microsoft's code page for Japanese), a widely used extension of Shift JIS.
This avoided a shape definition error in the Unicode code charts: the wave dash reference glyph in JIS / Shift JIS matches the Unicode reference glyph for U+FF5E, while the reference glyph for U+301C was reflected, incorrectly, when Unicode imported the JIS wave dash. In other platforms such as the classic Mac OS and macOS, 0x8160 is correctly mapped to U+301C. It is generally difficult, if not impossible, for users of Japanese Windows to type U+301C, especially in legacy, non-Unicode applications.
A similar situation exists regarding the Korean KS X 1001 character set, in which Microsoft maps the EUC-KR or Unified Hangul Code, UHC code for the wave dash (0xA1AD) to U+223C (Tilde Operator), while IBM and Apple, Inc, Apple map it to U+301C. Microsoft also uses U+FF5E to map the KS X 1001 raised tilde (0xA2A6), while Apple uses U+02DC (˜).
The current Unicode reference glyph for U+301C has been corrected to match the JIS standard in response to a 2014 proposal, which noted that while the existing Unicode reference glyph had been matched by fonts from the discontinued Windows XP, all other major platforms including later versions of Microsoft Windows shipped with fonts matching the JIS reference glyph for U+301C.
The JIS / Shift JIS wave dash is still formally mapped to U+301C as of JIS X 0213, whereas the WHATWG Encoding Standard used by HTML5 follows Microsoft in mapping 0x8160 to U+FF5E. These two code points have a similar or identical glyph in several fonts, reducing the confusion and incompatibility.
Mathematics
As a unary operator
A tilde in front of a single quantity can mean "approximately", "about" or "of the same order of magnitude
An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm
In mathematics
Mathematics (from Greek: ) includes the study of such topics as numbers ( and ), formulas and related structures (), shapes and spaces in which they are contain ...
as."
In written mathematical logic, the tilde represents negation: "~''p''" means "not ''p''", where "''p''" is a proposition. Modern use often replaces the tilde with the negation symbol (¬) for this purpose, to avoid confusion with equivalence relations.
As a relational operator
In mathematics, the tilde operator (Unicode U+223C), sometimes called "twiddle", is often used to denote an equivalence relation between two objects. Thus "" means " is equivalence relation, equivalent to ". It is a weaker statement than stating that equality (mathematics), equals . The expression "" is sometimes read aloud as " twiddles ", perhaps as an analogue to the verbal expression of "".
The tilde can indicate approximate equality in a variety of ways. It can be used to denote the asymptotic analysis, asymptotic equality of two functions. For example, means that .
A tilde is also used to indicate "Approximation, approximately equal to" (e.g. 1.902 ~= 2). This usage probably developed as a typed alternative to the :Image:Libra.svg, libra symbol used for the same purpose in written mathematics, which is an equal sign with the upper bar replaced by a bar with an upward hump, bump, or loop in the middle (︍︍♎︎) or, sometimes, a tilde (≃). The symbol "≈" is also used for this purpose.
In physics and astronomy, a tilde can be used between two expressions (e.g. ) to state that the two are of the same order of magnitude
An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm
In mathematics
Mathematics (from Greek: ) includes the study of such topics as numbers ( and ), formulas and related structures (), shapes and spaces in which they are contain ...
.
In statistics and probability theory, the tilde means "is distributed as"; see random variable(e.g. X ~ B(n,p) for a binomial distribution).
A tilde can also be used to represent geometric Similarity (geometry), similarity (e.g. , meaning triangle is similar to ). A triple tilde (≋) is often used to show congruence
Congruence may refer to:
Mathematics
* Congruence (geometry), being the same size and shape
* Congruence or congruence relation, in abstract algebra, an equivalence relation on an algebraic structure that is compatible with the structure
* In modu ...
, an equivalence relation in geometry.
As an accent
The symbol "" is pronounced as "eff tilde" or, informally, as "eff twiddle" or, in American English, "eff wiggle". This can be used to denote the Fourier transform of ''f'', or a lift (mathematics), lift of ''f'', and can have a variety of other meanings depending on the context.
A tilde placed below a letter in mathematics can represent a Euclidean vector, vector quantity (e.g. ).
In statistics and probability theory, a tilde placed on top of a variable is sometimes used to represent the median of that variable; thus would indicate the median of the variable . A tilde over the letter n () is sometimes used to indicate the harmonic mean.
In machine learning, a tilde may represent a candidate value for a cell state in Gated recurrent unit, GRUs or LSTM units. (e.g. c̃)
Physics
Often in physics, one can consider an equilibrium solution to an equation, and then a perturbation to that equilibrium. For the variables in the original equation (for instance ) a substitution can be made, where is the equilibrium part and is the perturbed part.
A tilde is also used in particle physics to denote the hypothetical supersymmetric partner. For example, an electron is referred to by the letter ''e'', and its superpartner the selectron (particle), selectron is written ''ẽ''.
Economics
For relations involving preference, economists sometimes use the tilde to represent Preference (economics)#Notation, indifference between two or more bundles of goods. For example, to say that a consumer is indifferent between bundles ''x'' and ''y'', an economist would write ''x'' ~ ''y''.
Electronics
It can approximate the sine wave symbol (∿, Unicode, U+223F), which is used in electronics to indicate alternating current, in place of +, −, or ⎓ for direct current.
Linguistics
The tilde may indicate alternating allomorphs or Morphophonology, morphological alternation, as in for ''kneel~knelt'' (the plus sign#Other uses, plus sign '+' indicates a morpheme boundary).
The tilde may represent some sort of phonetic or phonemic variation between two sounds, which might be allophones or in free variation. For example, can represent "either or ".
In formal semantics (linguistics), formal semantics, it is also used as a notation for the ''squiggle operator'' which plays a key role in many theories of focus (linguistics), focus.
Computing
Directories and URLs
On Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser
Multi-user software is computer software
Software is a collection of Instruction (computer science), instructions that tell a computer how to work. This is in contrast t ...

-like operating systems (including AIX, BSD, Linux and macOS), tilde normally indicates the current user's home directory. For example, if the current user's home directory is , then the command is equivalent to , , or . This convention derives from the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal in common use during the 1970s, which happened to have the tilde symbol and the word "Home" (for moving the cursor to the upper left) on the same key. When prepended to a particular username, the tilde indicates that user's home directory (e.g., for the home directory of user , such as ).
Used in Uniform Resource Locator, URLs on the World Wide Web, it often denotes a personal website on a Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser
Multi-user software is computer software
Software is a collection of Instruction (computer science), instructions that tell a computer how to work. This is in contrast t ...

-based server. For example, might be the personal website of John Doe. This mimics the Unix shell usage of the tilde. However, when accessed from the web, file access is usually directed to a subdirectory in the user's home directory, such as or .
In URLs, the characters (or ) may substitute for a tilde if an input device lacks a tilde key. Thus, and will behave in the same manner.
Computer languages
The tilde is used in the AWK programming language as part of the pattern match operators for regular expressions:
*''variable'' ~ /''regex''/
returns true if the variable is matched.
*''variable'' !~ /''regex''/
returns false if the variable is matched.
A variant of this, with the plain tilde replaced with =~
, was adopted in Perl, and this semi-standardization has led to the use of these operators in other programming languages, such as Ruby programming language, Ruby or the SQL variant of the database PostgreSQL.
In APL (programming language), APL and MATLAB, tilde represents the monadic logical function NOT, and in APL it additionally represents the dyadic multiset function ''without'' (Complement (set theory)#Relative complement, set difference).
In C (programming language), C the tilde character is used as bitwise NOT unary Operators in C and C++, operator, following the notation in logic (an !
causes a logical NOT, instead). This is also used by most languages based on or influenced by C, such as C++, D programming language, D and C Sharp (programming language), C#. The MySQL, MySQL database also use tilde as bitwise invert as does Microsoft's SQL Server Transact-SQL, Transact-SQL (T-SQL) language. JavaScript also uses tilde as bitwise NOT, and because JavaScript internally uses floats and the bitwise complement only works on integers, numbers are stripped of their decimal part before applying the operation. This has also given rise to using two tildes ~~x
as a short syntax for a cast to integer (numbers are stripped of their decimal part and changed into their complement, and then back).
In C++ and C#, the tilde is also used as the first character in a Class (computer science), class's method (computer science), method name (where the rest of the name must be the same name as the class) to indicate a destructor (computer science), destructor – a special method which is called at the end of the Object lifetime, object's life.
In ASP.NET application tilde ('~') is used as a shortcut to the root of the application's virtual directory.
In the Cascading Style Sheets, CSS stylesheet language, the tilde is used for the indirect adjacent combinator as part of a selector.
In the D programming language, the tilde is used as an Array data structure, array concatenation operator, as well as to indicate an object destructor and bitwise not operator. Tilde operator can be overloaded for user types, and binary tilde operator is mostly used to merging two objects, or adding some objects to set of objects. It was introduced because plus operator can have different meaning in many situations. For example, what to do with "120" + "14" ? Is this a string "134" (addition of two numbers), or "12014" (concatenation of strings) or something else? D disallows + operator for arrays (and strings), and provides separate operator for concatenation (similarly PHP programming language solved this problem by using dot operator for concatenation, and + for number addition, which will also work on strings containing numbers).
In Eiffel (programming language), Eiffel, the tilde is used for object comparison. If ''a'' and ''b'' denote objects, the boolean expression ''a'' ~ ''b'' has value true if and only if these objects are equal, as defined by the applicable version of the library routine ''is_equal'', which by default denotes field-by-field object equality but can be redefined in any class to support a specific notion of equality. If ''a'' and ''b'' are references, the object equality expression ''a'' ~ ''b'' is to be contrasted with ''a'' = ''b'' which denotes reference equality. Unlike the call ''a''.''is_equal'' (''b''), the expression ''a'' ~ ''b'' is type safety, type-safe even in the presence of Covariance and contravariance (computer science), covariance.
In the Groovy (programming language), Apache Groovy programming language the tilde character is used as an operator mapped to the bitwiseNegate() method. Given a String the method will produce a java.util.regex.Pattern. Given an integer it will negate the integer bitwise like in C. =~
and ~
can in Groovy be used to match a regular expression.
In Haskell (programming language), Haskell, the tilde is used in type constraints to indicate type equality. Also, in pattern-matching, the tilde is used to indicate a lazy pattern match.
In the Inform programming language, the tilde is used to indicate a quotation mark inside a quoted string.
In "text mode" of the LaTeX typesetting language a tilde diacritic can be obtained using, e.g., \~
, yielding "ñ". A stand-alone tilde can be obtained by using \textasciitilde
or \string~
.
In "math mode" a tilde diacritic can be written as, e.g., \tilde
. For a wider tilde \widetilde
can be used. The \sim
command produce a tilde-like binary relation symbol that is often used in mathematical expressions, and the double-tilde ≈ is obtained with \approx
. The url
package also supports entering tildes directly, e.g., \url
.
In both text and math mode, a tilde on its own (~
) renders a white space with no line breaking.
In MediaWiki Syntax (programming languages), syntax, four tildes are used as a shortcut for a user's signature.
In Common Lisp, the tilde is used as the prefix for format specifiers in format strings.
In Max/MSP, a tilde is used to denote objects that process at the computer's sampling rate, i.e. mainly those that deal with sound.
In Standard ML, the tilde is used as the prefix for negative numbers and as the unary negation operator.
In OCaml, the tilde is used to specify the label for a labeled parameter.
In R_(programming_language) , R, the tilde operator is used to separate the left- and right-hand sides in a model formula.
In Object REXX, the twiddle is used as a "message send" symbol. For example, Employee.name~lower()
would cause the lower()
method to act on the object Employee
's name
attribute, returning the result of the operation. ~~
returns the object that received the method rather than the result produced. Thus it can be used when the result need not be returned or when cascading methods are to be used. team~~insert("Jane")~~insert("Joe")~~insert("Steve")
would send multiple concurrent insert
messages, thus invoking the insert
method three consecutive times on the team
object.
Backup filenames
The dominant Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser
Multi-user software is computer software
Software is a collection of Instruction (computer science), instructions that tell a computer how to work. This is in contrast t ...

convention for naming backup copies of files is appending a tilde to the original file name.
It originated with the Emacs text editor and was adopted by many other editors and some command-line tools.
Emacs also introduced an elaborate numbered backup scheme, with files named , and so on. It didn't catch on, as the rise of version control software eliminates the need for this usage.
Microsoft filenames
The tilde was part of Microsoft's filename mangling scheme when it extended the File Allocation Table, FAT file system standard to support long filenames for Microsoft Windows. Programs written prior to this development could only access filenames in the so-called 8.3 filename, 8.3 format—the filenames consisted of a maximum of eight characters from a restricted character set (e.g. no spaces), followed by a period, followed by three more characters. In order to permit these legacy programs to access files in the FAT file system, each file had to be given two names—one long, more descriptive one, and one that conformed to the 8.3 format. This was accomplished with a name-mangling scheme in which the first six characters of the filename are followed by a tilde and a digit. For example, "" might become "".
The tilde symbol is also often used to prefix hidden temporary files that are created when a document is opened in Windows. For example, when a document "Document1.doc" is opened in Word, a file called "~$cument1.doc" is created in the same directory. This file contains information about which user has the file open, to prevent multiple users from attempting to change a document at the same time.
Other uses
Computer programmers use the tilde in various ways and sometimes call the symbol (as opposed to the diacritic) a squiggle, squiggly, swiggle, or twiddle. According to the Jargon File, other synonyms sometimes used in programming include not, approx, wiggle, enyay (after ''ñ, eñe'') and (humorously) sqiggle . It is used in many languages as a binary inversion operator, swapping a number's binary 1's and 0's for example ~10 (binary ~1010) is equal to 5 (binary 0101).
In Raku (programming language), Raku, is used instead of for a regular expression.
Juggling notation
In the juggling notation system Beatmap, tilde can be added to either "hand" in a pair of fields to say "cross the arms with this hand on top". Mills Mess is thus represented as (~2x,1)(1,2x)(2x,~1)*.
Similar characters
Unicode
Unicode, formally the Unicode Standard, is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expressed in most of the world's wri ...

has code-points for many forms of tilde, for symbols incorporating tildes, and for characters visually similar to a tilde:
ASCII tilde (U+007E)
Most modern proportional fonts align the plain ASCII spacing character, spacing tilde at the same level as dashes, or only slightly upper. This distinguishes it from the ''small tilde'' ( ˜ ) introduced with Windows-1252, which is always raised. But in some monospace fonts, especially used in text user interfaces, ASCII
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding
In computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the stu ...
tilde character is raised too. This apparently is a legacy of typewriters, where pairs of similar spacing and combining characters relied on one glyph. Even in line printers' age character repertoires were often not large enough to distinguish between plain tilde, small tilde and combining tilde. Overprinting of a letter by the tilde was a working method of combining character, combining a letter.
Keyboards
Where a tilde is on the keyboard depends on the computer's language settings according to the following chart. On many keyboards it is primarily available through a dead key
A dead key is a special kind of a modifier key
In computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes and development of ...
that makes it possible to produce a variety of precomposed characters with the diacritic. In that case, a single tilde can typically be inserted with the dead key followed by the space bar, or alternatively by striking the dead key twice in a row.
To insert a tilde with the dead key, it is often necessary to simultaneously hold down the Alt Gr key. With a Macintosh either of the Alt/Option key, Option keys function similarly.
In the US and European Windows systems, the Alt code for a single tilde is 126
.
See also
* Circumflex
* Tittle
* Double tilde (disambiguation)
Notes
References
{{navbox punctuation
Latin-script diacritics
Punctuation
Typographical symbols
Greek-script diacritics
Logic symbols
Mathematical symbols