Caret (^)
The caret (^) is a small upward-pointing wedge. Proofreaders use it to mark where something is to be inserted in a line, and in spreadsheets such as Excel it means “to the power of”: 2^3 is 2 cubed.
Easily confused with
How to read it
The name is Latin for “there is lacking”, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, which defines the caret as a proofreading symbol showing where something is to be inserted in a line of printed or written matter. The key on a computer keyboard is, in Unicode’s name, CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT (U+005E): the circumflex, which the same dictionary describes as a mark used over a vowel in certain languages to show its pronunciation. Unicode notes that it is “used in ASCII-based representation of exponentiation”, and Microsoft lists ^ (caret) as Excel’s exponentiation operator, with =2^3 as its example. The proofreader’s marks also have characters of their own: ‸ CARET (U+2038) and ⁁ CARET INSERTION POINT (U+2041), which Unicode describes as the proofreader’s mark for “insert here”.
Also searched as: ^, caret meaning, caret symbol, hat symbol.
Not a power sign in every language
In Python, ^ is not exponentiation. The Python Language Reference defines ^ as bitwise XOR (exclusive OR) and uses ** as the power operator, so the same characters, 2^3, mean different things in Python and in Excel.
Two carets as a face
Two carets side by side, ^^ or ^_^, make a pair of smiling eyes in the upright, East Asian style of emoticon: see happy eyes.
More punctuation and typographic symbols
Browse symbols drawn with lines.
Sources
- caret (American Heritage Dictionary entry), The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition, HarperCollins Publishers, caret, n.
- circumflex (American Heritage Dictionary entry), The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition, HarperCollins Publishers, circumflex, n.
- C0 Controls and Basic Latin: Range 0000–007F (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Version 18.0, Unicode Consortium, Basic Latin, 005E
- General Punctuation: Range 2000–206F (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Version 18.0, Unicode Consortium, General Punctuation, 2038 and 2041
- Calculation operators and precedence in Excel, Microsoft Support, Microsoft, Arithmetic operators table
- The Python Language Reference, 6. Expressions, Python Software Foundation, 6.5 and 6.9
Last reviewed October 1, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research