Octothorpe

From Fresh Dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Etymology 1.2 Pronunciation 1.3 Noun

English

Etymology

Origin uncertain; reportedly a jocular coinage by Bell Labs supervisor Don Macpherson in the early 1960s, from octo- (with reference to the eight points) + -thorpe (after 1912 Olympic medalist Jim Thorpe, in whom Macpherson had some interest). The story is disputed by some etymologists.

Pronunciation

IPA: /'ɒktəʊθɔ:p/

Noun

Singular octothorpe

Plural octothorpes

1. (mainly US) A name for the hash or square symbol (#), used mainly in telephony and computing
   • 2004: Strings are enclosed in double quotation marks, numbers are not enclosed in anything, and dates and Boolean values are enclosed between octothorpe (#) characters. — Andrew Pitonyak, Openoffice.Org Macros Explained (Hentzenwerke 2004, p. 139)