octothorpe

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Alternative forms 1.2 Etymology 1.3 Pronunciation 1.4 Noun 1.4.1 Synonyms 1.4.2 Translations 1.4.3 See also 1.4.4 External links

[edit] English

[edit] Alternative forms

• octothorp

[edit] Etymology

Origin disputed. Reportedly a jocular coinage by Bell Labs supervisor Don Macpherson in the early 1960s, from octo- (“‘eight’”), with reference to its eight points, + -thorpe (after 1912 Olympic medalist Jim Thorpe, in whom Macpherson was interested). However, Doug Kerr [1] attributes octatherp to a practical joke by engineers John C. Schaak, Herbert T. Uthlaut, and Lauren Asplund upon himself and Howard Eby.

The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories (1991) supports octotherp as the original spelling, and telephone engineers as the source.

[edit] Pronunciation

• (RP) IPA: /'ɒktəʊθɔ:p/
• (US) IPA: /'ɑːktoʊθɔ:rp/
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}

[edit] Noun

octothorpe (plural octothorpes)

1. (chiefly US) A name for the hash or square symbol (#), used mainly in telephony and computing
   • 1982, Willard R. Espy, A Children's Almanac of Words at Play, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., page 230

     Octothorp is the # on a push-button telephone. Rumor at the telephone company is that a man named Charles B. Octothorp, wanting to make his name famous...

   • 2004, Andrew Pitonyak, Openoffice.Org Macros Explained, Hentzenwerke, page 139

     Strings are enclosed in double quotation marks, numbers are not enclosed in anything, and dates and Boolean values are enclosed between octothorpe (#) characters.

[edit] Synonyms

• hash, octothorn, pound sign, number sign

[edit] Translations

[edit] See also

• #

[edit] External links

• Number sign on Wikipedia.Wikipedia:Number sign