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ampersand

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am⋅per⋅sand

  [am-per-sand, am-per-sand]
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–noun
a character or symbol (& or ) for and: Smith & Jones, Inc.
Origin:
1820–30; contr. of and per se and lit., (the symbol) & by itself (stands for) and; see per se
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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am·per·sand   (ām'pər-sānd')   
n.  The character or sign (&) representing the word and.

[Alteration of and per se and, & (the sign) by itself (means) and.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Cultural Dictionary

ampersand [(am-puhr-sand)]

A symbol for and (&), as in Dun & Bradstreet.

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

ampersand 
1837, contraction of and per se and, meaning "(the character) '&' by itself is 'and.' " The symbol is based on the L. word et "and," and comes from an old Roman system of shorthand signs (ligatures), attested in Pompeiian graffiti, but not (as sometimes stated) from the Tironian Notes, which was a different form of shorthand, probably invented by Cicero's companion Marcus Tullius Tiro, which used a different symbol, something like a reversed gamma, to indicate et. This Tironian symbol was maintained by some medieval scribes, including Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, who sprinkled their works with a symbol like a numeral 7 to indicate the word and.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Computing Dictionary

ampersand character
"&" ASCII character 38.
Common names: ITU-T, INTERCAL: ampersand; amper; and. Rare: address (from C); reference (from C++); bitand; background (from sh); pretzel; amp.
A common symbol for "and", used as the "address of" operator in C, the "reference" operator in C++ and a bitwise AND operator in several programming languages.
UNIX shells use the character to indicate that a task should be run in the background.
The ampersand is a ligature (combination) of the cursive letters "e" and "t", invented in 63 BC by Marcus Tirus [Tiro?] as shorthand for the Latin word for "and", "et".
The word ampersand is a conflation (combination) of "and, per se and". Per se means "by itself", and so the phrase translates to "&, standing by itself, means 'and'". This was at the end of the alphabet as it was recited by children in old English schools. The words ran together and were associated with "&". The "ampersand" spelling dates from 1837.
Take our word for it.
(2000-10-28)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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