This saved on the expense of the scribe's labor and the cost of vellum and ink. Such a mark could denote the omission of one letter or several letters.

Thus, the commonly used words Anno Domini were frequently abbreviated to A o Dñi, with an elevated terminal with a suspension mark placed over the 'n'. The tilde was originally written over an omitted letter or several letters as a scribal abbreviation, or 'mark of suspension' and 'mark of contraction', shown as a straight line when used with capitals. Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in combination with a base letter but for historical reasons, it is also used in standalone form within a variety of contexts. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin titulus, meaning 'title' or 'superscription'. The tilde ( / ˈ t ɪ l d eɪ, - d i, - d ə, ˈ t ɪ l d/) ˜ or ~, is a grapheme with several uses. For the notations ⟨ ⟩, / / and used in this article, see IPA Brackets and transcription delimiters.

This page uses orthographic and related notations.

How to make tilde on mac