Ampersand - origin

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&

The word ampersand was originally "and per se and". This is a partially Latin phrase, meaning "'and' in itself, 'and'," or in other words "the sign for 'and', meaning 'and' and only 'and'." Ampersand is much easier!

The symbol was originally a digraph formed by using the central cross-bar of an '-e-' as the top cross bar of a '-t', as can be seen in one formn of the ampersand: & (in the Trebuchet MS font). This was originally hand-written by placing a cross-bar on the end of the tail of a looped '-e-'.