AMPERSAND

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AMPERSAND. A printer's term for the characters & and æ, originally forms of Latin et (and), as in Gilbert & Sullivan. Both & and £ (short for libra pound) survive from the system of ABBREVIATION used by medieval scribes. Once a common replacement for and, it is now largely a flourish on business cards and letter-heads. It also occurs in &c, a variant of etc. It is short for and per se and: ‘and by itself (means) and’.

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