Dollar sign - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 1of5

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sign
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The dollar sign or peso sign($ or$) is a symbol primarily used to indicate a
unit of currency.

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Contents
1111 1 History
$
I
1111 1.1 Spanish Coat of Arms
11 2 Alternative origin hypotheses
.1111 2.1 From 'US' Currency signs • o
.111 2.2 From a symbol used on the Roman sestertius

111 2.3 The two pillars in the temple of SolomorlB • [] • ¢ • $ • D •Bl. • d • € • f • D • D

1111 2.4 From a sign used on the German Thaler £ • f • D • ff • D • P • R • Sk • D

-11 2.5 Unit of Silver \ • SI .. •~ • R$ • $ • D • W • ¥ • zl • D • ~
1111 2.6 Other theories
1111 2.7 First cast dollar symbol Fonner signs
1111 3 Use in computer programming D D D • D • D • F • Lm • D • Pts • II.• Kcs
0 0
.

111 4 Currencies that use the dollar or peso sign

111 5 See also "... ~: ry5 -

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111 6 References
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History \>
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The sign is attested in business co1respondence

Punctuation
between British North America and Mexico in the 1770s, as referring to the
Spanish-Mexican peso.[l] The piastre was known as "Spanish dollar" in apostrophe ( ' ' )
British North America, and in 1785, it was adopted as U.S. currency, brackets ( ( ) ), ([ ]), ( { }), (< >)
colon (:)
together with both the term "dollar" and.the$ sign. Interestingly, the first comma (,)
instance of the symbol on U.S.A. currency is on the reverse of a $1 coin dashes ( -, -, - , - )
ellipsis ( ... , .•. )
first issued in February 2007, under the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, exclamation mark ( ! )
[2] full stop/period ( . )
guillemets ( « » )
hyphen ( -, - )
The sign's ultimate origins are not certain[3J, though it is widely accepted · question mark ( ? )
that it comes from the Spanish coat of arms, which carries the two Pillars quotation marks ( ' ', " " )
semicolon ( ; )
of Hercules and the motto Non Plus Ultra in the shape of an 11 S 11 • slash/stroke ( I)
solidus(/)

Spanish Coat of Arms Interword separation

· spaces () ( ) ( )
The most widely accepted explanation interpunct ( · )

is that the dollar sign derives from the General typography

Spanish coat of arms engraved on the ampersand ( & )

Spanish colonial silver coins "Real de a Ocho" ("piece of eight") or asterisk ( * )
at(@)
Spanish dollar under circulation in the Spanish colonies of America and backslash ( \)
Asia, as well as in the English Thirteen Colonies and later the U.S. and bullet ( •)
caret ( " )
Canada. currency ( c ) ¢, $, €, £, ¥, W, fi!J
dagger/obelisk ( t ) ( +)
degree ( 0 )

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Dollar sign - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 2of5

The Spanish coat of arms has two pilcrow ( ~)

prime ( ')
columns (II), which represent the section sign ( § )
Pillars of Hercules and an "S 11 -shaped tilde/swung dash ( - )
. umlaut/diaeresis ( ··)
ribbon around each, with the motto underscore/understrike ( _ )
"Non Plus Ultra 11 originally, and later vertical/pipe/broken bar ( I, : )
"Plus Ultra" .[4 ] Uncommon typography

asterism ( A )
In 1492, King Ferdinand II of Aragon . index/fist ( a- )
put Gibraltar under the new joined rule : therefore sign ( :. )
interrobang ( 'P )
of the Spanish throne. He adopted the irony mark ( ) )
symbol of the Pillars of Hercules and : reference mark (
· sarcasm mark
*)
added the Latin phrase Non plus ultra
The Pillars of Hercules with 11 8 11 - - meaning "and nothing further",
shaped ribbon in the Town Hall of indicating "[this is] the end of the (known) world". But as
Seville, (Spain) (16th century) Christopher Columbus in 1492 travelled to the Americas, the
saying was changed to P !us Ultra - as there was more out there.
[S] This symbol was especially adopted by Charles V and was a part of his coat of arms as a symbol
of his American possessions and riches. When the Spanish conquistadores found gold and silver in
the New World, Charles V's symbol was stamped on the coins made from these metals. These coins
with the Pillars of Hercules over two hemispheres (columnarios) were spread around America and
Europe, and the symbol was ultimately adopted by the country that became the United States and by
many of the continent's other independent nations. Later on, salesmen wrote signs that, instead of
saying dollar, had this handwritten symbol, and in turn this developed to the simple S with two
vertical bars.

There is also another theory that makes the sign derive from where"$" is a
corruption of the letters 'iPS" or P 8 , used as an abbreviation for pesos. [6 ][71

Alternative origin hypotheses

~
There are a number of alternative origin theories, with several degrees of
The Pillars of verifiability and academic acceptance.
Hercules around
the modern coat
of arms of From 'US'
Spain.
That $ is a monogram of U and S, which was used as a mark on money bags
issued by the United States Mint. The letters U and S superimposed resemble the historical double
stroke"$" sign: the bottom of the 10' disappears into the bottom curve of the 'S 1, leaving two vertical
lines. This double stroke dollar sign has been used to refer to the U.S. currency. Thus, the one stroke
design may have been modified to the double stroke design to represent United States currency. This
theory was largely popularized by the novel Atlas Shrugged by philosopher Ayn Rand. This theory
does not consider the fact that the symbol \Vas already in use in the time of the British colonies, when
the term 'United States' did not exist yet.

From a symbol used on the Roman sestertius

That the dollar sign goes back to the most important Roman coin, the Sestertius, which had the
letters 'HS' as its currency sign. When superimposed, these letters form a dollar sign with two
vertical strokes (the horizontal line of the 'H' merging into the 'S'). This theory is widely discarded, in
spite of the tendency of nee-classic Roman Republic influences in styles evident in other early US
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 Dollar sign - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 3of5

government designs, such as the Capitol and Senate buildings.

The two pillars in the temple of Solomon

That the two vertical lines represent the two cult pillars Boaz and Jachin in the original Temple of
Solomon at Jerusalem. This is based on the theory that Masonic symbols, such as the All Seeing Eye
of God, appear on U.S. currency, however they did not in 1785.

From a sign used on the German Thaler

That it derives from the symbol used on a German Thaler. According to Ovason (2004), on one type
,··:,, ofthaler, one side showed the crucified Christ, and the other side showed a serpent hanging from a
cross, and near the serpent's head the letters NU, and on the other side of the cross the number 21.
This refers to the Bible, Numbers, chapter 21 (see Nehushtan).

Unit of Silver

The dollar symbol was in use in colonial times before the American Revolution. Prices were often
quoted in units of silver, as the Spanish "piece of eight" was in common use for payment of goods
and services. When a price was quoted the capital 'S' was used to indicate silver with a capital 'U'
written on top to indicate units. Eventually, the capital 'U' was replaced by double vertical hash
marks.

Other theories

Another possibility is that it derives from the British notation 81 for eight shillings, referring to the
Spanish 8 reales coin ("piece of eight"), which ·later became the USA dollar. Others derive it from
the Portuguese Cifrao sign $. [S]

A common explanation is that the symbol is derived from the

numeral eight with a slash through it denoting "pieces of eight. 11
The Oxford English Dictionary prior to 1963 held that this was the
most probable explanation, though later editions have placed this
theory in doubt.

Still another explanation holds that the dollar sign is derived from
(or at least inspired by) the mint mark on Spanish colonial silver
coins ("real" or "piece of eight") that were minted in Potosi (in
present day Bolivia). The mint mark was composed of the letters
"PTSI" superimposed on one another, and bears an undeniable Image of 1768 Spanish
resemblance to the single-stroke dollar sign (see picture). The Colonial Real silver coin,
Potosi mine is generally accepted as having been the largest single showing PTSI ($)mint mark
silver strike in history. Silver coins minted in Potosi would have in lower right quadrant. It also
shows the columns around the
been in common use in colonial America, and its mint mark widely
hemispheres (this time
recognized. displayed one at the side of the
other).
First cast dollar symbol

According to a plaque in the burgh of St Andrews in Scotland, the

first dollar symbol was cast in a type-foundry in Philadelphia in
1797 that belonged to Scottish immigrant John Baine. John Baine had lodged in a house in South
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Dollar sign - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 4of5

Street in St Andrews with Alexander Wilson, the father of Scottish

type-founding.

Use in computer programming

As the dollar sign is one of the few symbols that is on the one hand
almost universally present in computer character sets, but on the
other hand rarely needed in its literal meaning within programming
The plaque on the bookshop
languages, the $ character has been used on computers for many
on the comer of South Street
purposes not related to money, including: and Church Street in St
Andrews.
1111$ was used as a string terminator in CP /M and subsequently
also in all versions of 86-DOS, PC-DOS, MS-DOS and
derivatives (Int 21 with AH=09h)
a $ signifies the end of a line or the file in text editors ed, ex, vi and derivatives, and
consequently:
1111$ matches the end of a line or string in sed, grep, and POSIX and Perl regular expressions.
1111$ was used to define string variables in older versions of the BASIC programming language
("$" was often pronounced "string" instead of "dollar" in this use).
11 $is used to define hexadecimal constants in Pascal-like languages as.Delphi.

1111$ is used to define variables in the PHP programming language and scalar variables in the Perl
programming language (see Sigil (computer programming)).
11 In the Autolt automation script language, any variable is required to have a $ at the beginning

of its name. -
1111In most shell scripting languages, $ is used to interpolate environment variables, special
variables, arithmetic computations and special characters, and to perform translation of
localised strings.
11 In UNIX-like systems the$ is often part of the command prompt, depending on the user's shell

and environment settings. For example, the default environment settings for the bash shell
specify $ as part of the command prompt.
11 $ is used in the TeX typesetting language to delimit mathematical regions.

llll $ is used by the prompt command in DOS to insert special sequences into the DOS command

prompt string.
• Formulas in Microsoft Excel and other spreadsheets use$ to indicate an absolute cell
reference.

Currencies that use the dollar or peso sign

In addition to those countries of the world tha~ use dollars or pesos, a number of other countries use
the symbol $to denote their currencies, including, but not limited to:

li\l Nicaraguan c6rdoba

Iii Tongan pa' anga

Except the Philippine peso, whose sign is written as P.

Some currencies use the cifrao ( $), similar to the dollar sign, but always with two strokes:

(ill Brazilian real

m Cape Verde escudo
11 Portuguese escudo (defunct)

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 Dollar sign - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 5of5

The cifrao is also currently used to account for over 130,000,000 domestic standard US Mint
(1986+) bullion US silver dollars as one dollar per one troy ounce fine (99.9%), thereby avoiding
confusion with debased US trade dollar-denominated tokens and Federal Reserve Notes.

See also
1111 Canadian dollar
11 Euro sign
1 '·
1111 Pound sign
--~,

j! ;

...,_! References
l.A Lawrence Kinnaird: "The Western Fringe of Revolution", The Western Historical Quarterly.

Vol. 7, No. 3 (Jul., 1976), page 259 [1] (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-3810%

28 l 97607%297%3A3 %3 C253 %3ATWFOR%3E2.0. C0%3 B2-4)
2. A Pub. L. No. 109-145, 119 Stat. 2664 (Dec. 22, 2005).
3. A "Note on Our Dollar Sign", Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct.,
1939), pp. 57-58 [2] (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=l 065-9048%28193910%2913 %3A4%
3C57%3ANOODS%3E2.0.C0%3B2-8)
A Nussbaum, Arthur: A history of the dollar. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957.

A Earl Rosenthal: "Plus Ultra, Non plus Ultra, and the Columnar Device of Emperor Charles

V", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 34, 1971 (1971), pp. 204-228
A Arthur S. Aiton; Benjamin W. Wheeler: "The First American Mint", The Hispanic American

Historical Review. Vol. 11, No. 2 (May, 1931), pp. 198-215. [3] (http://links.jstor.org/sici?
sici=0018-2168%28193105%2911 %3A2%3Cl98%3ATFAM%3E2.0.C0%3B2-Q)
A "Origin of the$ Sign" (http://www.moneyfactory.gov/document.cfm/18/113), US Bureau of

Engraving and Printing website

A Florian Cajori: "New Data on the Origin and Spread of the Dollar Mark", The Scientific

Monthly. Vol. 29, No. 3 (Sep., 1929), pp. 212-216 [4] (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0096-
3 771%28192909%2929%3A3%3C2l2%3ANDOTOA%3E2.0.C0%3B2-Z)

Cajori, Florian ( 1993). A History of Mathematical Notations. New York: Dover (reprint). ISBN 0-
11111

486-67766-4. - contains section on the history of the dollar sign, with much documentary evidence
supporting the "pesos" theory.
m Ovason, David (2004-11-30). The Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill. Harper Paperbacks (reprint).
~/
ISBN 0-06-053045-6.

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Categories: Articles to be merged since August 2007 I Currency signs I Articles needing additional
references from August 2007 I Dollar I Peso I Numismatics
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l!ll This page was last modified 16:51, 4 January 2008.

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