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Origin
Usage

Popular Culture dictionary

at sign

or @ [at sahyn]

Published April thirteen, 2018

What does at sign hateful?

Theat sign is most commonly found in email addresses and on social media, where it is used to tag specific users in posts.

The symbol,@, tin can too stand in for the give-and-takeat in everyday writing and in online conversation, where information technology is often used as a verb.

Where does at sign come up from?

at sign

wikimedia

The exact origins of theat sign are unknown. One theory thinks monks created the symbol to save infinite on valuable manuscript newspaper by combining the letters of ad, the Latin word for to(ward). Another theory supposes French writers fabricated information technology up to reduce pen strokes required to write à, or at.

The first known written record of theat sign comes from a letter written by Francesco Lapi in 1536. A merchant from Florence, Lapi used the symbol every bit a unit of measurement of measurement for shipping wine. Most likely stemming from this use, theat sign was plant useful by other merchants and, later, commercial grocers and accounting professionals. They used the symbol to indicate per-unit cost. For example, "5 apples @ $5 each" ways that the full price of 5 apples would be $25.@ became useful enough to merit inclusion on commercial typewriters by the 1880s.

Theat sign was first used in email addresses in 1971. Ray Tomlinson, a computer scientist who worked for BBN Technologies, was tasked with networking early computers to a precursor to the internet in a mode that would permit messages to be sent between them. He used a two-part address to transport and receive messages, with the sender or recipient's name outset and their estimator's identifier 2d. To carve up the two, he chose a piffling-used cardinal on the keyboard: @.

Examples of at sign

child in white shirt sitting across from jolly holiday in disneyland delight meet me @ the castle this night i'm in honey with you

@calistabarnes_, March, 2018

Bipolar disorder "does not have to define you," @MariahCarey told @People, "and I refuse to permit it to define me or control me."

@thelilynews, Apr, 2018

I wasn't able to score tickets to see the touring company of Hamilton, because I didn't have a firm to mortgage and also, I don't like Hamilton. Don't @ me.

Courtenay Hameister,The Portland Mercury, April, 2018

Who uses at sign?

Today, theat sign is widely used as a tool of the net. It is nigh commonly found in electronic mail addresses to separate the username from the domain name and in social-media handles (east.g., @dictionarycom), specially on Twitter and Instagram. Most major social-media platforms let users to tag others by typing "@" and then another user'south handle, which acts equally a form of digital address.

Past the 2010s, the at sign had become so widespread as a way to tag someone on social media that people began using it as a verb, to at or @ someone, or "mention someone directly in a bulletin." The verb is especially mutual in the phrasedon't @ me. This phrase nods to theat sign's function in tagging users in posts. When a social-media user says "don't @ me," they are sharing a potentially unpopular opinion and humorously requesting that those who disagree with them refrain from responding, especially by tagging them in a reply. Someone posting "don't @ me" recognizes that they have shared a controversial opinion, and they will probable be engaged in debate anyway. This makesdon't @ me a betoken of playful controversy rather than an earnest asking not be @'d or atted (withattinga fairly common verb on Twitter).

Outside of the internet, people use theat sign every bit shorthand for the wordat in everyday writing, virtually often in reference to times, dates, and places of scheduled events (e.g., Run into yous @ the eating place @ 7pm!).

Note

This is not meant to be a formal definition of at sign like most terms we ascertain on Dictionary.com, merely is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of at sign that will help our users expand their word mastery.