Pound sign
From Free net encyclopedia
- "Pound sign" is also a term sometimes used for the number sign, "#", in the United States and Canada
The pound sign ("£") is the symbol for pound sterling, the currency of the United Kingdom (UK), and some other currencies of the same name in other countries. Rarely, L is used instead. Both symbols derive from libra, the Latin word for "pound". The ISO 4217 currency code is GBP (from the ISO 3166-1 country code for the UK and the inital letter of pound). Occasionally the abbreviation UKP is also seen.
In Italy, prior to the adoption of the Euro as its currency, the symbol was used as an alternative to the same with a double central line ("₤"), or the more usual letter L to represent prices in Lira. When writing the pound, most people do write it with a double central line.
The pound sign, like the dollar sign ("$"), is usually placed before the number (i.e. "£12,000" and not "12,000£"), and is usually not separated from the following number or only separated by a thin space.