£ U+00A3, £
POUND SIGN
¢
[U+00A2]
Latin-1 Supplement ¤
[U+00A4]
U+FFE1, £
FULLWIDTH POUND SIGN

[U+FFE0]
Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms
[U+FFE2]

Translingual

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Etymology

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From the first letter of Latin lībra (pound). The symbol is derived from the mediaeval tradition of placing a stroke over a letter or letters of a word (in this case L) to indicate an abbreviation; when letters have ascenders like L, the stroke frequently passes through that ascender. £ is thus cognate with the pound sign #, which was similarly derived from lb with a stroke through the ascenders.

Symbol

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£

  1. pound sterling
  2. various other currencies called pound or lira.
    • 2007, Dave Lee (jazz musician), Nothing Rhymes with Silver 2[1], page 78:
      Flanders was able to flog his piece of land, for which he had originally paid £4,000, to one of the largest gold-mining corporations for something like a couple of million smackers.

Derived terms

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The practice of placing a stroke through the initial of the name for a currency as a symbol for that currency has been extended to other currency symbols, including several shown below.

See also

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  • £sd (pounds, shillings and pence)
  • £B (Bristol pound)
  • (lira)
Currency signs
  • ¤ – currency wildcard
  • ؋ – afghani
  • ฿ – baht
  • – bitcoin
  • ¢ – cent
  • – colón
  • – cedi
  •   – cifrão
  •   – Emirati dirham
  • $ – dollar
  • – dong
  • ֏ – dram
  • – euro
  • ƒ – florin, guilder, gulden
  • – franc
  • – guarani
  • – hryvnia
  • – kip
  • – lari
  • – Turkish lira
  • – manat
  • – mill
  • – naira
  • – Philippine peso
  • £ or – pound, lira
  • – Iranian rial
  •   – Saudi riyal
  • – riel
  • – ruble
  • – rupee
  • – Indian rupee
  • – new shekel
  • – Kyrgyzstani som
  • – tenge
  • – tugrik, tether
  • – won
  • ¥ – yen, yuan
Language-specific currency signs
  • – Bengali rupee sign
  • – Bengali taka sign
  • – Bengali ana sign
  • – Bengali ganda sign
  • રૂ૰ – Gujarati rupee sign
  • – North Indic rupee sign
  • रू () – Nepali rupee sign
  • රු (ru) – Sinhala rupee sign
  • – Tamil rupee sign
  • 𞱱 – Urdu rupee sign
  • 𞋿 – Wancho rupee sign
  • ރ – rufiyaa (in Dhiveli)
  • – yen (in Japanese)
  • – yuan (in Chinese)
  •  / – yuan (in Chinese)
Formerly used currency signs
  • 𐆚 – Roman as
  • – austral
  • – European Currency Unit
  • – cruzeiro
  • 𐆖 – Roman denarius
  • – drachma
  • – livre tournois
  • – mark
  • – peseta
  • – pfennig
  • 𐆘 – Roman sesterce
  • – spesmilo
  •   – old Israeli shekel

Latin

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Etymology

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A cursive sigma 𐆒 for semis with a cross-bar

Symbol

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£

  1. Alternative form of 𐆘