Dollar sign ($)

How to read it

Unicode names the character DOLLAR SIGN (U+0024) and notes that it is used for many peso currencies in Latin America and elsewhere; the milréis and the escudo also used it. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as the symbol used mainly to indicate a dollar amount. The US Government Publishing Office’s style manual lists $ beside “dol” as the abbreviation for dollar and sets it close up to the figure: $3.65, $0.75. Because so many currencies share the sign, Unicode advises software that needs to know exactly which currency is meant to use the ISO 4217 codes instead, such as USD for the US dollar and CAD for the Canadian dollar.

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One stroke or two

The dollar sign is written with one vertical stroke or two, and both are the same character. Unicode found that claims of one form being used consistently for a particular currency could not be substantiated, so it treats the difference as typographical. The Bank of Canada Museum describes the sign simply as an S with a line or two through it.

The cifrão

In Portugal and its colonies a sign that looks like the dollar sign, the cifrão, stood where other countries put a decimal point. The Bank of Canada Museum shows a Portuguese coin of 1971 marked 2$50, for 2.5 escudos.

Look-alikes

The Philippine peso sign ₱ is the exception among pesos. Unicode notes that the Mexican, Chilean, Colombian and Dominican pesos are written with $, while the Philippine peso has a sign of its own.