Section sign

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

Character (§) for referencing sections

title: "Section sign" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["latin-script-ligatures", "punctuation", "typographical-symbols"] description: "Character (§) for referencing sections" topic_path: "general/latin-script-ligatures" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_sign" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Character (§) for referencing sections ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox symbol"]

FieldValue
mark§
unicode
see also
::

| mark = § | unicode = | see also =

The section sign (§) is a typographical symbol for referencing individually numbered sections of a document; it is frequently used when citing sections of a legal code. It is also known as the section symbol, section mark, double-s, or silcrow. In other languages it may be called the "paragraph symbol" (for example, ). The section sign typically appears akin to a letter S stacked on top of another S.

Use

The section sign is often used when referring to a specific section of a legal code. For example, in Bluebook style, "Title 16 of the United States Code Section 580p" becomes "16 U.S.C. §580p". The section sign is frequently used along with the pilcrow (or paragraph sign), , to reference a specific paragraph within a section of a document. However, some jurisdictions prefer the sign be avoided, and rather that the word "section" be written out in full.

While is usually read in spoken English as the word "section", many other languages use the word "paragraph" exclusively to refer to a section of a document (especially of legal text), and use other words to describe a paragraph in the English sense. Consequently, in those cases "§" may be read as "paragraph", and may occasionally also be described as a "paragraph sign", but this is a description of its usage, not a formal name.

When duplicated, as , it is read as the plural "sections". For example, "§§13–21" would be read as "sections 13 through 21", much as (pages) is the plural of , meaning page.

It may also be used with footnotes when asterisk , dagger , and double dagger have already been used on a given page.

It is common practice to follow the section sign with a non-breaking space so that the symbol is kept with the section number being cited.

Unicode

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Parágrafo.PNG" caption="Two common representations of the section sign"] ::

The section sign appeared in several early computer text encodings. It was placed at (167) in ISO-8859-1, a position that was inherited by Unicode as code point . Representation of the sign is an artistic decision within the overall design language of the typeface (or computer font): the two more commonly seen forms are shown here. In all cases, the sign is encoded by U+00A7.

Origin

Two possible origins are often posited for the section sign: most probably, that it is a ligature formed by the combination of two S glyphs (from the Latin signum sectiōnis). Some scholars, however, are skeptical of this explanation.

Others have theorized that it is an adaptation of the Ancient Greek παράγραφος (paragraphos), a catch-all term for a class of punctuation marks used by scribes with diverse shapes and intended uses.

The modern form of the sign, with its modern meaning, has been in use since the 15th century.

In literature

In Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk, the symbol is used repeatedly to mean "bureaucracy". In his English translation of 1930, Paul Selver translated it as "red tape".

References

References

  1. Standler, Ronald M.. (2004). "Legal Research and Citation Style in USA".
  2. Butterick, Matthew. "Butterick's Practical Typography: Paragraphs and Section Marks".
  3. (2 August 2022). "How to Use a Section Mark or Silcrow {{!}} Monotype".
  4. (August 9, 2018). "Guides: Bluebook Guide: Federal Statutes". [[Georgetown Law.
  5. "Symbols :: California Secretary of State".
  6. "The Unicode Standard, Version 10.0 – C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement".
  7. "Some text-to-speech voices read the section symbol as paragraph instead of section".
  8. Felici, James. (2012). "The Complete Manual of Typography".
  9. "Manual: *@©™®†‡§¶❦☜".
  10. Webb, Stephen. (2018). "Clash of Symbols". Springer International Publishing.
  11. Radoeva, Krista. (2017-01-12). "The section sign". [[Monotype Imaging]].
  12. Parker, Richard Green. (1851). "Aids to English Composition, Prepared for Students of All Grades". [[Harper & Brothers]].
  13. Lewis, Erwin Herbert. (1894). "The History of the English Paragraph". University of Chicago Press.
  14. Webster, Noah. (1886). "Webster's Complete Dictionary of the English Language". [[George Bell & Sons]].
  15. Garulli, Valentina. (2018-10-09). "The Materiality of Text: Placement, Perception, and Presence of Inscribed Texts in Classical Antiquity". [[Brill Publishers]].
  16. Lewis, Edwin Herbert. (1894). "The history of the English paragraph". University of Chicago.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

latin-script-ligaturespunctuationtypographical-symbols