At sign

 ( Latin-script Ligatures ) 

On web pages, organizations often obscure the email addresses of their members or employees by omitting the @. This practice, known as address munging, attempts to make the email addresses less vulnerable to spam programs that scan the internet for them.

On online forums without threaded discussions, @ is commonly used to denote a reply; for instance: @Jane to respond to a comment Jane made earlier. Similarly, in some cases, @ is used for "attention" in email messages originally sent to someone else. For example, if an email was sent from Catherine to Steve, but in the body of the email, Catherine wants to make Keirsten aware of something, Catherine will start the line to indicate to Keirsten that the following sentence concerns her. This also helps with mobile email users who might not see bold or color in email.

In microblogging (such as on Twitter, GNU social- and ActivityPub-based microblogs), an @ before the user name is used to send publicly readable replies (e.g. @otheruser: Message text here). The blog and client software can automatically interpret these as links to the user in question. When included as part of a person's or company's contact details, an @ symbol followed by a name is normally understood to refer to a Twitter handle. A similar use of the @ symbol was also made available to Facebook users on September 15, 2009. In Internet Relay Chat (IRC), it is shown before users' nicknames to denote they have operator status on a channel.

• In ActionScript, @ is used in XML parsing and traversal as a string prefix to identify attributes in contrast to child elements.
• In Ada 2022, @ is the target name symbol, an abbreviation of the LHS of an assignment; it is used to avoid repetition of potentially long names in assignment statements. For example: A_Very_Long_Variable_Name := A_Very_Long_Variable_Name + 1; is shortened to A_Very_Long_Variable_Name := @ + 1;, increasing readability.
• In ALGOL 68, the @ symbol is brief form of the at keyword; it is used to change the lower bound of an array. For example: refers to an array starting at index 88.
• In Dyalog APL, @ is used as a functional way to modify or replace data at specific locations in an array.
• In the ASP.NET MVC Razor template markup syntax, the @ character denotes the start of code statement blocks or the start of text content.
• In Assembly language, @ is sometimes used as a dereference operator.
• In CSS, @ is used in special statements outside of a CSS block.
• In C#, it denotes "verbatim strings", where no characters are escaped and two double-quote characters represent a single double-quote. 2.4.4.5 String literals , As a prefix it also allows keywords to be used as identifiers, a form of stropping.
• In D, it denotes function attributes: like: @safe, @nogc, user defined @('from_user') which can be evaluated at compile time (with __traits) or @property to declare properties, which are functions that can be syntactically treated as if they were fields or variables.
• In DIGITAL Command Language, the @ character was the command used to execute a command procedure. To run the command procedure VMSINSTAL.COM, one would type @VMSINSTAL at the command prompt.
• In the Domain Name System (DNS), @ is used to represent the , typically the "root" of the domain without a prefixed sub-domain. (Ex: wikipedia.org vs. www.wikipedia.org)
• In Forth, it is used to fetch values from the address on the top of the stack. The operator is pronounced as "fetch".
• In Haskell, it is used in so-called as-patterns. This notation can be used to give aliases to pattern matching, making them more readable.
• in HTML, it can be encoded as @
• In J, denotes function composition.
• In Java, it has been used to denote Java annotation, a kind of metadata, since version 5.0.
• In Julia, it denotes the invocation of a macro.
• In LiveCode, it is prefixed to a parameter to indicate that the parameter is passed by reference.
• In an LXDE autostart file (as used, for example, on the Raspberry Pi computer), @ is prefixed to a command to indicate that the command should be automatically re-executed if it crashes.
• In a Makefile, @ specifies to not output the command before it is executed.
• In ML, it denotes list concatenation.
• In modal logic, specifically when representing , @ is sometimes used as a logical symbol to denote the actual world (the world we are "at").
• In Objective-C, @ is prefixed to language-specific keywords such as @implementation and to form string literals.
• In InterSystems ObjectScript, @ is the indirection operator, enabling dynamic runtime substitution of part or all of a command line, a command, or a command argument.
• In Pascal, @ is the "address of" operator (it tells the location at which a variable is found).
• In Perl, @ prefixes variables which contain arrays , including array and hash slices or . This use is known as a sigil.
• In PHP, it is used just before an expression to make the interpreter suppress errors that would be generated from that expression.
• In Python 2.4 and up, it is used to decorate a function (wrap the function in another one at creation time). In Python 3.5 and up, it is also used as an overloadable matrix multiplication operator.
• In R and S-PLUS, it is used to extract slots from S4 objects.
• In Razor, it is used for C# code blocks.
• In Ruby, it functions as a sigil: @ prefixes instance variables, and @@ prefixes .
• In Rust, it is used to bind values matched by a pattern to a variable.
• In Scala, it is used to denote annotations (as in Java), and also to bind names to subpatterns in pattern-matching expressions.
• In Swift, @ prefixes "annotations" that can be applied to classes or members. Annotations tell the compiler to apply special semantics to the declaration like keywords, without adding keywords to the language.
• In T-SQL, @ prefixes variables and @@ prefixes "niladic" system functions.
• In several xBase-type programming languages, like DBASE, FoxPro/Visual FoxPro and Clipper, it is used to denote position on the screen. For example: to show the word "HELLO" in line 1, column 1.
• In FoxPro/Visual FoxPro, it is also used to indicate explicit pass by reference of variables when calling Subroutine (but it is not an Memory address operator).
• In a Windows Batch file, an @ at the start of a line suppresses the echoing of that command. In other words, is the same as ECHO OFF applied to the current line only. Normally a Windows command is executed and takes effect from the next line onward, but @ is a rare example of a command that takes effect immediately. It is most commonly used in the form which not only switches off echoing but prevents the command line itself from being echoed.
• In Windows PowerShell, @ is used as array operator for array and hash table literals and for enclosing here-string literals.

• In (especially English) scientific and technical literature, @ is used to describe the conditions under which data are valid or a measurement has been made. E.g. the density of saltwater may read d = 1.050 g/cm³ @ 15 °C (read "at" for @), density of a gas d = 0.150 g/L @ 20 °C, 1 bar, or noise of a car 81 dB @ 80 km/h (speed).
• In philosophical logic, '@' is used to denote the actual world (in contrast to non-actual possible worlds). Analogously, a 'designated' world in a Kripke semantics may be labelled '@'.
• In chemical formulae, @ is used to denote trapped atoms or molecules. For instance, La@C₆₀ means lanthanum inside a fullerene cage. See article Endohedral fullerene for details.
• In Malagasy, @ is an informal abbreviation for the prepositional form amin'ny.
• In Malay language, @ is an informal abbreviation for the word "atau", meaning "or" in English.
• In genetics, @ is the abbreviation for locus, as in IGL@ for immunoglobulin lambda locus.
• In the Koalib language of Sudan, @ is used as a letter in Arabic loanwords. The Unicode Consortium rejected a proposal to encode it separately as a letter in Unicode. SIL International uses Private Use Area code points U+F247 and U+F248 for lowercase and capital versions, although they have marked this PUA representation as deprecated since September 2014.Constable, Peter, and Lorna A. Priest (January 17, 2019) SIL Corporate PUA Assignments 5.2a . SIL International . pp. 59–60. Retrieved on July 20, 2020.
• A schwa, as the actual schwa character "ə" may be difficult to produce on many computers. It is used in this capacity in some ASCII IPA schemes, including SAMPA and X-SAMPA.
• In leet it may substitute for the letter "A".
• It is frequently used in typing and text messaging as an abbreviation for "at".
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• In Portugal it may be used in typing and text messaging with the meaning "french kiss" ( linguado).
• In online discourse, @ is used by some anarchists as a substitute for the traditional circle-A.
• Algebraic notation for the Crazyhouse chess variant: An @ between a piece and a square denotes a piece dropped onto that square from the player's reserve.
• In many roguelike games @ is used to represent player character

• In Afrikaans, it is called aapstert, meaning 'monkey tail', similarly to the Dutch language use of the word ( is the word for 'monkey' or 'ape' in Dutch language, comes from the Dutch ).
• In Arabic, it is آتْ (at).
• In Armenian, it is (shnik), which means 'puppy'.
• In Azerbaijani, it is ət (at) which means 'meat', though most likely it is a phonetic transliteration of at.
• In Basque language, it is a bildua ('wrapped A').
• In Belarusian, it is called (sʹlimak, meaning 'helix' or 'snail').
• In Bosnian language, it is ludo a ('crazy A').
• In Bulgarian, it is called кльомба (klyomba – 'a badly written letter'), маймунско а (maymunsko a – 'monkey A'), маймунка (maimunka – 'little monkey'), or баница (banitsa – a pastry roll often made in a shape similar to the character)
• In Catalan language, it is called (a unit of measure) or ensaïmada (a pastry, because of the similar shape of this food).
• In Chinese language:
• In mainland China, it used to be called (pronounced quān A), meaning 'circled A' / 'enclosed A', or (pronounced huā A), meaning 'lacy A', and sometimes as (pronounced xiǎo lǎoshǔ), meaning 'little mouse'. Nowadays, for most of China's youth, it is called (pronounced ài tè), which is a phonetic transcription of at.
• In Taiwan, it is (pronounced xiǎo lǎoshǔ), meaning 'little mouse'.
• In Hong Kong and Macau, it is at.
• In Croatian, it is most often referred to by the English word at (pronounced et), and less commonly and more formally, with the preposition (with the addressee in the nominative case, not locative as per usual rection of pri), meaning 'at', 'chez' or 'by'. Informally, it is called a , coming from the local pronunciation of the English word monkey. Note that the Croatian words for monkey, , , jopec, šimija are not used to denote the symbol, except seldom the latter words regionally.
• In Czech language it is called , which means 'rollmops'; the same word is used in Slovak language.
• In Danish language, it is ('elephant's trunk A'). It is not used for prices, where in Danish means 'at (per piece)'.
• In Dutch language, it is called ('monkey's tail'). The a is the first character of the Dutch word which means 'monkey' or 'ape'; is the plural of aap. However, the use of the English at has become increasingly popular in Dutch.
• In Esperanto, it is called ('at' – for the email use, with an address like "zamenhof@esperanto.org" pronounced zamenhof ĉe esperanto punkto org), ('each' – refers only to the mathematical use), or (meaning 'snail').
• In Estonian, it is called ätt, from the English word at.
• In Faroese language, it is , ('at'), tranta, or snápil-a ('elephant's trunk A').
• In Finnish language, it was originally called ("fee sign") or ("unit price sign"), but these names are long obsolete and now rarely understood. Nowadays, it is officially , according to the national standardization institute SFS; frequently also spelled at-merkki. Other names include ('cat's tail') and ('miaow-meow') or short; “miu-mau”.
• In French language, it is now officially the "At last, France has a name for the @ sign" , December 9, 2002, iol.co.zaitalic=unset (also spelled arrobase or ), or a commercial (though this is most commonly used in French-speaking Canada, and should normally only be used when quoting prices; it should always be called arobase or, better yet, arobas when in an email address). Its origin is the same as that of the Spanish language word, which could be derived from the Arabic ar-roub (). In France, it is also common (especially for younger generations) to say the English word at when spelling out an email address. In everyday Québec French, one often hears a commercial when sounding out an e-mail address, while TV and radio hosts are more likely to use arobase.
• In Georgian, it is at, spelled ეთ–ი (, ḳomerciuli et-i).
• In German language, it has sometimes been referred to as Klammeraffe (meaning 'spider monkey') or Affenschwanz (meaning 'monkey tail'). Klammeraffe or Affenschwanz refer to the similarity of @ to the tail of a monkey. More recently, it is commonly referred to as at, as in English.
• In Greek language, it is called meaning 'duckling'.
• In Greenlandic, an Inuit language, it is called meaning 'A-like' or 'something that looks like A'.
• In Hebrew, it is colloquially known as (strudel]]), due to the visual resemblance to a cross-section cut of a strudel cake. The normative term, invented by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, is (krukhít), which is another Hebrew word for 'strudel', but is rarely used.
• In Hindi, it is at, from the English word.
• In Hungarian, it is called (a playful synonym for 'worm' or 'maggot').
• In Icelandic, it is referred to as ("the at sign") or , which is a direct translation of the English word at.
• In Indian English, speakers often say at the rate of (with e-mail addresses quoted as "example at the rate of example.com").
• In Indonesian, it is usually et. Variations exist – especially if verbal communication is very noisy – such as and (both meaning ' A'), ('snail A'), and (most rarely) ('monkey A').
• In Irish language, it is (meaning 'at') or (meaning 'at sign').
• In Italian language, it is ('snail') or , sometimes at (pronounced more often and rarely ) or .
• In Japanese, it is called (, from the English words at mark). The word is wasei-eigo, a loan word from the English language.
• In Kazakh language, it is officially called айқұлақ (aıqulaq, 'moon's ear').
• In Korean language, it is called golbaeng-i (골뱅이, meaning 'whelk'), a dialectal form of whelk.
• In Kurdish, it is at or et (Latin Hawar script), ئەت (Perso-Arabic Sorani alphabet) coming from the English word at.
• In Latvian language, it is pronounced the same as in English, but, since in Latvian is written as "e" (not "a" as in English), it is sometimes written as et.
• In Lithuanian, it is pronounced eta (equivalent to the English at).
• In Luxembourgish it used to be called Afeschwanz ('monkey tail'), but due to widespread use, it is now called at, as in English.
• In Macedonian, it is called (majmunče, , 'little monkey').
• In Malaysia, it is called alias when it is used in names and when it is used in email addresses, di being the Malay word for 'at'. It is also commonly used to abbreviate which means 'or', 'either'.
• In Morse code, it is known as a "commat", consisting of the Morse code for the "A" and "C" which run together as one character: . The symbol was added in 2004 for use with email addresses, the only official change to Morse code since World War I.
• In Nepali language, the symbol is called "at the rate." Commonly, people will give their email addresses by including the phrase "at the rate".
• In Norwegian, it is officially called krøllalfa ('curly alpha' or 'alpha twirl'), and commonly as alfakrøll. Sometimes snabel-a, the Swedish/Danish name (which means 'trunk A', as in 'elephant's trunk'), is used. Commonly, people will call the symbol (as in English), particularly when giving their email addresses. The computer manufacturer Norsk Data used it as the command prompt, and it was often called "grisehale" (pig's tail).
• In Persian language, it is ات, at, from the English word.
• In Polish language, it is commonly called ('monkey'). Rarely, the English word at is used.
• In Portuguese, it is called (from the Arabic ar-roub, ). The word arroba is also used for a weight measure in Portuguese. One arroba is equivalent to 32 old Portuguese pounds, approximately , and both the weight and the symbol are called arroba. In Brazil, cattle are still priced by the arroba – now rounded to . This naming is because the at sign was used to represent this measure.
• In Romanian, it is most commonly called at, but also colloquially called maimuță]] ("monkey tail") or a-rond. The latter is commonly used, and it comes from the word round (from its shape), but that is nothing like the mathematical symbol A-rond (rounded A). Others call it aron, or la (Romanian word for 'at').

• In Russian language, it is commonly called собачка (sobachka – 'little dog').
• In Serbian language, it is called (ludo A – 'crazy A'), (majmunče – 'little monkey'), or (majmun – 'monkey').
• In Slovak language, it is called ('rollmop', a pickled fish roll, as in Czech).
• In Slovene language, it is called afna (an informal word for 'monkey').
• In Spanish language countries, it is called (from the Arabic ar-roub, which denotes a pre-metric unit of weight).
• In Sámi (North Sámi), it is called bussáseaibi meaning 'cat's tail'.
• In Swedish language, it is called ('elephant's trunk A') or simply at, as in the English language. Less formally it is also known as ('cinnamon roll') or alfakrull ('alpha curl').
• In Swiss German, it is commonly called Affenschwanz ('monkey-tail'). However, the use of the English word at has become increasingly popular in Swiss German, as with Standard German.
• In Tagalog language, the word means 'and', so the symbol is used like an ampersand in colloquial writing such as text messages (e.g. magluto @ kumain, 'cook and eat').
• In Thai language, it is commonly called at, as in English.
• In Turkish language, it is commonly called et, a variant pronunciation of English at.
• In Ukrainian, it is commonly called ет (et – 'at') or Равлик (ravlyk), which means 'snail'.
• In Urdu, it is اٹ (at).
• In Uzbek language, it is commonly called kuchukcha ('little dog').
• In Vietnamese, it is called ('bent A') in northern Vietnam and ('hooked A') in southern Vietnam.
• In Welsh language, it is sometimes known as a malwen or (both meaning "snail").