Greater than sign (>)

How to read it

It is read “is greater than”: OpenStax’s Prealgebra textbook reads a > b as “a is greater than b”. The same comparison can be turned round with the less than sign, so 17 > 4 and 4 < 17 say the same thing. The sign is the keyboard character U+003E, which Unicode names GREATER-THAN SIGN, and Unicode notes that > and < are also paired as the angle brackets of computer markup.

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Telling > from <

The wide, open side of the sign faces the larger number and the point faces the smaller one. OpenStax puts it this way: “The smaller side of the symbol faces the smaller number and the larger faces the larger number.” A well-known reading aid turns the open side into a hungry mouth. In a 2024 PBS Let’s Learn lesson the teacher says children often meet the sign in kindergarten as “Gator”, whose mouth points at whichever side has more.

Look-alikes

The greater than or equal to sign ≥ has a line under the >, and allows the two sides to be equal. Unicode also lists four characters shaped like > that are not the maths sign: the modifier letter right arrowhead ˃ (U+02C3), the single right-pointing angle quotation mark › (U+203A), and the angle brackets 〉 (U+232A) and ⟩ (U+27E9).