Definitions For Octothorpe

Noun

OCTOTHORPE (plural OCTOTHORPEs) (chiefly, US, typography) The hash or square symbol ({{unsupported, #}}), used mainly in telephony and computing.

Synonyms

hash, octothorn, pound sign, number sign, tic-tac-toe sign, noughts and crosses sign/symbol, sharp sign [music], hashtag

Translations

octothorpe, hash

See also

{{unsupported, #}} sextile

References

Further reading

{{pedialite, Number sign}}

Alternative forms

octothorp

Etymology

Origin disputed. There is no known usage before it was adopted by w:bell labs, bell labs in the late 1960s or early 1970s, so most sources agree it was coined by someone at Bell Labs, but accounts from Bell Labs personnel conflict on the details.{{cite-book, author=Keith Houston, chapter=The Octothorpe, title=Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3fbWAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA56&dq=%22octothorpe%22&pg=PA41#v=onepage&q=%22octothorpe%22&f=false, publisher=W. W. Norton & Company, year=2013, pages=41-57}} The derivation as a traditional term from octo-, , eight and thorpe, , field, hamlet or small village lacks any evidence, but there is near universal agreement that the first element refers to the number eight. Eight is derived from the number of ends of the lines. Thorpe could be reference to , as one proponent was a fan of the athlete.