Named Character Entity References
According to Section 24 of the HTML 4.01 Spec, “A character entity reference is an SGML construct that references a character of the document character set.” In other words, if you are writing a web page and want to use a character that you can’t easily type, or one of a set of few characters (e.g. “<”, “>”, “&”) that you should not enter because they are used in the HTML language, you can use one of these references to have that character displayed properly on your web page (so long as the font on the computer of whoever is viewing your page supports it).
The general form is “&reference;”, where reference is the (usually) shortened name of the character you want to display. For example, to display an ampersand, you type “&” --- amp is the shortened name.
Alternately, you may use the numeric reference to specify any of these characters: “&#numeric;”, where numeric is the numeric reference shown for the desired character. For example, to display an ampersand, you type “&".
HTML 4.01 provides three broad categories of character entity references:
- ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) characters --- standard characters and symbols used in most Western languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, etc.). According to the spec, “the set of Latin-1 entities has been extended by this specification to cover the whole right part of ISO-8859-1 (all code positions with the high-order bit set).”
- Symbols, mathematical symbols, and Greek letters --- according to the spec, “these characters may be represented by glyphs in the Adobe font ‘Symbol’.”
- Markup-significant and internationalization characters (e.g., for bidirectional text).
According to Section A2 of the XHTML spec, “The XHTML entity sets are the same as for HTML 4, but have been modified to be valid XML 1.0 entity declarations.”
NOTE: To see these in a different font, append "?font=Font Name" to the URL for this page and reload it. For example, enter
http://awcolley.com/WebsiteDev/HTMLNamedChar?font=Times New Roman
to see these characters displayed using the Times New Roman font.
NOTE: The “Displayed” column shows the symbol slightly larger than normal, to make it a little easier to see here. Also, it is displayed with a yellow background, so you can see how wide it is (especially for spaces).
There are two additional pages displaying these named entities in different order:
ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) Characters
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
nbsp | | no-break / non-breaking space | 160 | U+00A0 |
iexcl | ¡ | inverted exclamation mark | 161 | U+00A1 |
cent | ¢ | cent sign | 162 | U+00A2 |
pound | £ | pound sign | 163 | U+00A3 |
curren | ¤ | currency sign | 164 | U+00A4 |
yen | ¥ | yen / yuan sign | 165 | U+00A5 |
brvbar | ¦ | broken bar / vertical bar | 166 | U+00A6 |
sect | § | section sign | 167 | U+00A7 |
uml | ¨ | diaeresis / spacing diaeresis | 168 | U+00A8 |
copy | © | copyright sign | 169 | U+00A9 |
ordf | ª | feminine ordinal indicator | 170 | U+00AA |
laquo | « | left double angle quotation mark / guillemet | 171 | U+00AB |
not | ¬ | not sign | 172 | U+00AC |
shy | | soft / discretionary hyphen | 173 | U+00AD |
reg | ® | registered sign / trade mark sign | 174 | U+00AE |
macr | ¯ | macron /spacing macron /overline / APL overbar | 175 | U+00AF |
deg | ° | degree sign | 176 | U+00B0 |
plusmn | ± | plus-minus / plus-or-minus sign | 177 | U+00B1 |
sup2 | ² | superscript two / squared | 178 | U+00B2 |
sup3 | ³ | superscript three / cubed | 179 | U+00B3 |
acute | ´ | acute accent / spacing acute | 180 | U+00B4 |
micro | µ | micro sign | 181 | U+00B5 |
para | ¶ | pilcrow / paragraph sign | 182 | U+00B6 |
middot | · | middle dot / Georgian comma / Greek middle dot | 183 | U+00B7 |
cedil | ¸ | cedilla / spacing cedilla | 184 | U+00B8 |
sup1 | ¹ | superscript one | 185 | U+00B9 |
ordm | º | masculine ordinal indicator | 186 | U+00BA |
raquo | » | right double angle quotation mark / guillemet | 187 | U+00BB |
frac14 | ¼ | (vulgar) fraction one quarter | 188 | U+00BC |
frac12 | ½ | (vulgar) fraction one half | 189 | U+00BD |
frac34 | ¾ | (vulgar) fraction three quarters | 190 | U+00BE |
iquest | ¿ | inverted / turned question mark | 191 | U+00BF |
Agrave | À | latin capital letter A with grave | 192 | U+00C0 |
Aacute | Á | latin capital letter A with acute | 193 | U+00C1 |
Acirc | Â | latin capital letter A with circumflex | 194 | U+00C2 |
Atilde | Ã | latin capital letter A with tilde | 195 | U+00C3 |
Auml | Ä | latin capital letter A with diaeresis | 196 | U+00C4 |
Aring | Å | latin capital letter A with ring above | 197 | U+00C5 |
AElig | Æ | latin capital letter / ligature AE | 198 | U+00C6 |
Ccedil | Ç | latin capital letter C with cedilla | 199 | U+00C7 |
Egrave | È | latin capital letter E with grave | 200 | U+00C8 |
Eacute | É | latin capital letter E with acute | 201 | U+00C9 |
Ecirc | Ê | latin capital letter E with circumflex | 202 | U+00CA |
Euml | Ë | latin capital letter E with diaeresis | 203 | U+00CB |
Igrave | Ì | latin capital letter I with grave | 204 | U+00CC |
Iacute | Í | latin capital letter I with acute | 205 | U+00CD |
Icirc | Î | latin capital letter I with circumflex | 206 | U+00CE |
Iuml | Ï | latin capital letter I with diaeresis | 207 | U+00CF |
ETH | Ð | latin capital letter ETH | 208 | U+00D0 |
Ntilde | Ñ | latin capital letter N with tilde | 209 | U+00D1 |
Ograve | Ò | latin capital letter O with grave | 210 | U+00D2 |
Oacute | Ó | latin capital letter O with acute | 211 | U+00D3 |
Ocirc | Ô | latin capital letter O with circumflex | 212 | U+00D4 |
Otilde | Õ | latin capital letter O with tilde | 213 | U+00D5 |
Ouml | Ö | latin capital letter O with diaeresis | 214 | U+00D6 |
times | × | multiplication sign | 215 | U+00D7 |
Oslash | Ø | latin capital letter O with stroke / slash | 216 | U+00D8 |
Ugrave | Ù | latin capital letter U with grave | 217 | U+00D9 |
Uacute | Ú | latin capital letter U with acute | 218 | U+00DA |
Ucirc | Û | latin capital letter U with circumflex | 219 | U+00DB |
Uuml | Ü | latin capital letter U with diaeresis | 220 | U+00DC |
Yacute | Ý | latin capital letter Y with acute | 221 | U+00DD |
THORN | Þ | latin capital letter THORN | 222 | U+00DE |
szlig | ß | latin small letter sharp s / ess-zed | 223 | U+00DF |
agrave | à | latin small letter a with grave | 224 | U+00E0 |
aacute | á | latin small letter a with acute | 225 | U+00E1 |
acirc | â | latin small letter a with circumflex | 226 | U+00E2 |
atilde | ã | latin small letter a with tilde | 227 | U+00E3 |
auml | ä | latin small letter a with diaeresis | 228 | U+00E4 |
aring | å | latin small letter a with ring above | 229 | U+00E5 |
aelig | æ | latin small letter / ligature ae | 230 | U+00E6 |
ccedil | ç | latin small letter c with cedilla | 231 | U+00E7 |
egrave | è | latin small letter e with grave | 232 | U+00E8 |
eacute | é | latin small letter e with acute | 233 | U+00E9 |
ecirc | ê | latin small letter e with circumflex | 234 | U+00EA |
euml | ë | latin small letter e with diaeresis | 235 | U+00EB |
igrave | ì | latin small letter i with grave | 236 | U+00EC |
iacute | í | latin small letter i with acute | 237 | U+00ED |
icirc | î | latin small letter i with circumflex | 238 | U+00EE |
iuml | ï | latin small letter i with diaeresis | 239 | U+00EF |
eth | ð | latin small letter eth | 240 | U+00F0 |
ntilde | ñ | latin small letter n with tilde | 241 | U+00F1 |
ograve | ò | latin small letter o with grave | 242 | U+00F2 |
oacute | ó | latin small letter o with acute | 243 | U+00F3 |
ocirc | ô | latin small letter o with circumflex | 244 | U+00F4 |
otilde | õ | latin small letter o with tilde | 245 | U+00F5 |
ouml | ö | latin small letter o with diaeresis | 246 | U+00F6 |
divide | ÷ | division sign | 247 | U+00F7 |
oslash | ø | latin small letter o with stroke / slash | 248 | U+00F8 |
ugrave | ù | latin small letter u with grave | 249 | U+00F9 |
uacute | ú | latin small letter u with acute | 250 | U+00FA |
ucirc | û | latin small letter u with circumflex | 251 | U+00FB |
uuml | ü | latin small letter u with diaeresis | 252 | U+00FC |
yacute | ý | latin small letter y with acute | 253 | U+00FD |
thorn | þ | latin small letter thorn | 254 | U+00FE |
yuml | ÿ | latin small letter y with diaeresis | 255 | U+00FF |
Symbols, Mathematical Symbols, and Greek Letters
Latin Extended-B
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
fnof | ƒ | latin small f with hook / function / florin | 402 | U+0192 |
Greek
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
Alpha | Α | greek capital letter alpha | 913 | U+0391 |
Beta | Β | greek capital letter beta | 914 | U+0392 |
Gamma | Γ | greek capital letter gamma | 915 | U+0393 |
Delta | Δ | greek capital letter delta | 916 | U+0394 |
Epsilon | Ε | greek capital letter epsilon | 917 | U+0395 |
Zeta | Ζ | greek capital letter zeta | 918 | U+0396 |
Eta | Η | greek capital letter eta | 919 | U+0397 |
Theta | Θ | greek capital letter theta | 920 | U+0398 |
Iota | Ι | greek capital letter iota | 921 | U+0399 |
Kappa | Κ | greek capital letter kappa | 922 | U+039A |
Lambda | Λ | greek capital letter lambda | 923 | U+039B |
Mu | Μ | greek capital letter mu | 924 | U+039C |
Nu | Ν | greek capital letter nu | 925 | U+039D |
Xi | Ξ | greek capital letter xi | 926 | U+039E |
Omicron | Ο | greek capital letter omicron | 927 | U+039F |
Pi | Π | greek capital letter pi | 928 | U+03A0 |
Rho | Ρ | greek capital letter rho | 929 | U+03A1 |
Sigma | Σ | greek capital letter sigma1 | 931 | U+03A3 |
Tau | Τ | greek capital letter tau | 932 | U+03A4 |
Upsilon | Υ | greek capital letter upsilon | 933 | U+03A5 |
Phi | Φ | greek capital letter phi | 934 | U+03A6 |
Chi | Χ | greek capital letter chi | 935 | U+03A7 |
Psi | Ψ | greek capital letter psi | 936 | U+03A8 |
Omega | Ω | greek capital letter omega | 937 | U+03A9 |
alpha | α | greek small letter alpha | 945 | U+03B1 |
beta | β | greek small letter beta | 946 | U+03B2 |
gamma | γ | greek small letter gamma | 947 | U+03B3 |
delta | δ | greek small letter delta | 948 | U+03B4 |
epsilon | ε | greek small letter epsilon | 949 | U+03B5 |
zeta | ζ | greek small letter zeta | 950 | U+03B6 |
eta | η | greek small letter eta | 951 | U+03B7 |
theta | θ | greek small letter theta | 952 | U+03B8 |
iota | ι | greek small letter iota | 953 | U+03B9 |
kappa | κ | greek small letter kappa | 954 | U+03BA |
lambda | λ | greek small letter lambda | 955 | U+03BB |
mu | μ | greek small letter mu | 956 | U+03BC |
nu | ν | greek small letter nu | 957 | U+03BD |
xi | ξ | greek small letter xi | 958 | U+03BE |
omicron | ο | greek small letter omicron | 959 | U+03BF |
pi | π | greek small letter pi | 960 | U+03C0 |
rho | ρ | greek small letter rho | 961 | U+03C1 |
sigmaf | ς | greek small letter final sigma | 962 | U+03C2 |
sigma | σ | greek small letter sigma | 963 | U+03C3 |
tau | τ | greek small letter tau | 964 | U+03C4 |
upsilon | υ | greek small letter upsilon | 965 | U+03C5 |
phi | φ | greek small letter phi | 966 | U+03C6 |
chi | χ | greek small letter chi | 967 | U+03C7 |
psi | ψ | greek small letter psi | 968 | U+03C8 |
omega | ω | greek small letter omega | 969 | U+03C9 |
thetasym | ϑ | greek small letter theta symbol | 977 | U+03D1 |
upsih | ϒ | greek upsilon with hook symbol | 978 | U+03D2 |
piv | ϖ | greek pi symbol | 982 | U+03D6 |
1 there is no Sigmaf and no U+03A2 character either
General Punctuation
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
bull | • | bullet / black small circle1 | 8226 | U+2022 |
hellip | … | horizontal ellipsis / three dot leader | 8230 | U+2026 |
prime | ′ | prime / minutes / feet | 8242 | U+2032 |
Prime | ″ | double prime / seconds / inches | 8243 | U+2033 |
oline | ‾ | overline / spacing overscore | 8254 | U+203E |
frasl | ⁄ | fraction slash | 8260 | U+2044 |
1 bull is NOT the same as bullet operator, U+2219
Letterlike Symbols
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
weierp | ℘ | script capital P / power set / Weierstrass p | 8472 | U+2118 |
image | ℑ | blackletter capital I / imaginary part | 8465 | U+2111 |
real | ℜ | blackletter capital R / real part symbol | 8476 | U+211C |
trade | ™ | trade mark sign | 8482 | U+2122 |
alefsym | ℵ | alef symbol / first transfinite cardinal1 | 8501 | U+2135 |
1 alefsym is NOT the same as hebrew letter alef, U+05D0, although the same glyph could be used to depict both characters
Arrows
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
larr | ← | leftwards arrow | 8592 | U+2190 |
uarr | ↑ | upwards arrow | 8593 | U+2191 |
rarr | → | rightwards arrow | 8594 | U+2192 |
darr | ↓ | downwards arrow | 8595 | U+2193 |
harr | ↔ | left right arrow | 8596 | U+2194 |
crarr | ↵ | left corner down arrow / carriage return | 8629 | U+21B5 |
lArr | ⇐ | leftwards double arrow1 | 8656 | U+21D0 |
uArr | ⇑ | upwards double arrow | 8657 | U+21D1 |
rArr | ⇒ | rightwards double arrow2 | 8658 | U+21D2 |
dArr | ⇓ | downwards double arrow | 8659 | U+21D3 |
hArr | ⇔ | left right double arrow | 8660 | U+21D4 |
1 ISO 10646 does not say that
lArr is the same as the “is implied by” arrow but also does not have any other character for that function.
2 ISO 10646 does not say that rArr is the same as the “implies” character but does not have another character with this function.
Mathematical Operators
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
forall | ∀ | for all | 8704 | U+2200 |
part | ∂ | partial differential | 8706 | U+2202 |
exist | ∃ | there exists | 8707 | U+2203 |
empty | ∅ | empty set / null set / diameter | 8709 | U+2205 |
nabla | ∇ | nabla / backward difference | 8711 | U+2207 |
isin | ∈ | element of | 8712 | U+2208 |
notin | ∉ | not an element of | 8713 | U+2209 |
ni | ∋ | contains as member | 8715 | U+220B |
prod | ∏ | n-ary product / product sign1 | 8719 | U+220F |
sum | ∑ | n-ary sumation2 | 8721 | U+2211 |
minus | − | minus sign | 8722 | U+2212 |
lowast | ∗ | asterisk operator | 8727 | U+2217 |
radic | √ | square root / radical sign | 8730 | U+221A |
prop | ∝ | proportional to | 8733 | U+221D |
infin | ∞ | infinity | 8734 | U+221E |
ang | ∠ | angle | 8736 | U+2220 |
and | ∧ | logical and / wedge | 8743 | U+2227 |
or | ∨ | logical or / vee | 8744 | U+2228 |
cap | ∩ | intersection / cap | 8745 | U+2229 |
cup | ∪ | union / cup | 8746 | U+222A |
int | ∫ | integral | 8747 | U+222B |
there4 | ∴ | therefore | 8756 | U+2234 |
sim | ∼ | tilde operator / varies with / similar to3 | 8764 | U+223C |
cong | ≅ | approximately equal to | 8773 | U+2245 |
asymp | ≈ | almost equal to / asymptotic to | 8776 | U+2248 |
ne | ≠ | not equal to | 8800 | U+2260 |
equiv | ≡ | identical to | 8801 | U+2261 |
le | ≤ | less-than or equal to | 8804 | U+2264 |
ge | ≥ | greater-than or equal to | 8805 | U+2265 |
sub | ⊂ | subset of | 8834 | U+2282 |
sup | ⊃ | superset of4 | 8835 | U+2283 |
nsub | ⊄ | not a subset of | 8836 | U+2284 |
sube | ⊆ | subset of or equal to | 8838 | U+2286 |
supe | ⊇ | superset of or equal to | 8839 | U+2287 |
oplus | ⊕ | circled plus / direct sum | 8853 | U+2295 |
otimes | ⊗ | circled times / vector product | 8855 | U+2297 |
perp | ⊥ | up tack / orthogonal to / perpendicular | 8869 | U+22A5 |
sdot | ⋅ | dot operator5 | 8901 | U+22C5 |
1 prod is NOT the same character as U+03A0 “greek capital letter pi” though the same glyph might be used for both
2 sum is NOT the same character as U+03A3 “greek capital letter sigma” though the same glyph might be used for both
3 sim is NOT the same character as the tilde U+007E, although the same glyph might be used to represent both
4 note that nsup, “not a superset of” U+2283, is not covered by the Symbol font encoding and is not included
5 sdot is NOT the same character as U+00B7 “middle dot”
Miscellaneous Technical
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
lceil | ⌈ | left ceiling / apl upstile | 8968 | U+2308 |
rceil | ⌉ | right ceiling | 8969 | U+2309 |
lfloor | ⌊ | left floor / apl downstile | 8970 | U+230A |
rfloor | ⌋ | right floor | 8971 | U+230B |
lang | 〈 | left-pointing angle bracket1 | 9001 | U+2329 |
rang | 〉 | right-pointing angle bracket2 | 9002 | U+232A |
1 lang is NOT the same character as U+003C “less than” or U+2039 “single left-pointing angle quotation mark”
2 rang is NOT the same character as U+003E “greater than” or U+203A “single right-pointing angle quotation mark”
Geometric Shapes
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
loz | ◊ | lozenge | 9674 | U+25CA |
Miscellaneous Symbols
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
spades | ♠ | black spade suit | 9824 | U+2660 |
clubs | ♣ | black club suit / shamrock | 9827 | U+2663 |
hearts | ♥ | black heart suit / valentine | 9829 | U+2665 |
diams | ♦ | black diamond suit | 9830 | U+2666 |
Note: “black” here seems to mean filled as opposed to hollow
Markup-significant and Internationalization Characters
C0 Controls and Basic Latin
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
quot | " | quotation mark | 34 | U+0022 |
amp | & | ampersand | 38 | U+0026 |
lt | < | less-than sign | 60 | U+003C |
gt | > | greater-than sign | 62 | U+003E |
Latin Extended-A
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
OElig | Œ | latin capital ligature OE | 338 | U+0152 |
oelig | œ | latin small ligature1 oe | 339 | U+0153 |
Scaron | Š | latin capital letter S with caron | 352 | U+0160 |
scaron | š | latin small letter s with caron | 353 | U+0161 |
Yuml | Ÿ | latin capital letter Y with diaeresis | 376 | U+0178 |
1ligature is a misnomer, this is a separate character in some languages
Spacing Modifier Letters
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
circ | ˆ | modifier letter circumflex accent | 710 | U+02C6 |
tilde | ˜ | small tilde | 732 | U+02DC |
General Punctuation
Name | Sample | Description | Numeric Reference | ISO Number |
ensp | | en space | 8194 | U+2002 |
emsp | | em space | 8195 | U+2003 |
thinsp | | thin space | 8201 | U+2009 |
zwnj | | zero width non-joiner | 8204 | U+200C |
zwj | | zero width joiner | 8205 | U+200D |
lrm | | left-to-right mark | 8206 | U+200E |
rlm | | right-to-left mark | 8207 | U+200F |
ndash | – | en dash | 8211 | U+2013 |
mdash | — | em dash | 8212 | U+2014 |
lsquo | ‘ | left single quotation mark | 8216 | U+2018 |
rsquo | ’ | right single quotation mark | 8217 | U+2019 |
sbquo | ‚ | single low-9 quotation mark | 8218 | U+201A |
ldquo | “ | left double quotation mark | 8220 | U+201C |
rdquo | ” | right double quotation mark | 8221 | U+201D |
bdquo | „ | double low-9 quotation mark | 8222 | U+201E |
dagger | † | dagger | 8224 | U+2020 |
Dagger | ‡ | double dagger | 8225 | U+2021 |
permil | ‰ | per mille sign | 8240 | U+2030 |
lsaquo | ‹ | single left-pointing angle quotation mark1 | 8249 | U+2039 |
rsaquo | › | single right-pointing angle quotation mark2 | 8250 | U+203A |
euro | € | euro sign | 8364 | U+20AC |
1 lsaquo is proposed but not yet ISO standardized
2 rsaquo is proposed but not yet ISO standardized