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Examples
Origin
Usage

Popular Civilisation lexicon

at sign

or @ [at sahyn]

Published April 13, 2018

What does at sign mean?

Theat sign is well-nigh commonly found in e-mail 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 it is frequently used as a verb.

Where does at sign come up from?

at sign

wikimedia

The exact origins of theat sign are unknown. I theory thinks monks created the symbol to save space on valuable manuscript newspaper by combining the letters of ad, the Latin give-and-take for to(ward). Some other theory supposes French writers made it up to reduce pen strokes required to write à, or at.

The first known written record of theat sign comes from a letter of the alphabet written by Francesco Lapi in 1536. A merchant from Florence, Lapi used the symbol as a unit for shipping wine. Most likely stemming from this employ, theat sign was found useful past other merchants and, subsequently, commercial grocers and accounting professionals. They used the symbol to betoken per-unit cost. For example, "five apples @ $5 each" means that the full toll of 5 apples would be $25.@ became useful plenty 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 forerunner to the internet in a way 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 proper name first and their computer's identifier second. To separate the two, he chose a picayune-used key on the keyboard: @.

Examples of at sign

kid in white shirt sitting beyond from jolly holiday in disneyland please meet me @ the castle tonight i'm in beloved with you

@calistabarnes_, March, 2018

Bipolar disorder "does not take to define you," @MariahCarey told @People, "and I decline to allow information technology to define me or control me."

@thelilynews, April, 2018

I wasn't able to score tickets to meet the touring company of Hamilton, considering I didn't have a house to mortgage and also, I don't similar 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 internet. It is most commonly found in electronic mail addresses to separate the username from the domain proper noun and in social-media handles (east.g., @dictionarycom), especially on Twitter and Instagram. Almost major social-media platforms allow users to tag others by typing "@" and and then another user's handle, which acts every bit a form of digital address.

By the 2010s, the at sign had get so widespread every bit 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 specially common in the phrasedon't @ me. This phrase nods to theat sign'southward 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 past tagging them in a answer. Someone posting "don't @ me" recognizes that they have shared a controversial stance, and they will likely be engaged in debate anyway. This makesdon't @ me a indicate of playful controversy rather than an earnest request not be @'d or atted (withattinga adequately common verb on Twitter).

Outside of the internet, people employ theat sign as autograph for the give-and-takeat in everyday writing, almost oft in reference to times, dates, and places of scheduled events (e.g., See you lot @ the restaurant @ 7pm!).

Note

This is not meant to be a formal definition of at sign like most terms we define on Lexicon.com, just 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 aggrandize their word mastery.