!

Origins[change]

May come from a Latin shorthand with the I over the O: iō means a shout of surprise, or a shortening of interiectiō which in English is interjection.

Symbol[change]

Symbol
!

An exclamation mark used to show excitement, surprise or anger.
Ouch! Help! I am hurt!
1. Children's rhyme: "The interjection cries out: 'Hark! I need an exclaimation mark!'"
  
  c.1649 A Fiery Flying Roll by Abiezer Coppe: "And now (my dearest ones!) every one under the Sun..."
(symbol) Used by itself as a sign to make you notice something, such as something that is dangerous or something that has gone wrong.
(computing) In computing, it usually represents a Boolean not.
"if !x" means "if not x"
(mathematics) factorial
5! = 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1

"five factorial equals…"

Punctuation marks (edit)

apostrophe ( ' ) ( ’ ) • brackets ( [] ) ( {} ) • colon ( : ) • comma ( , ) • dashes ( – ) ( — ) • ellipsis ( ... ) • exclamation mark ( ! ) • hyphen ( ‐ ) ( - ) • parentheses ( () ) • period / full stop ( . ) • question mark ( ? ) • quotation marks ( ' ' ) ( " " ) • semicolon ( ; ) • slash ( / )

Other: ampersand ( & ) • asterisk ( * ) • at ( @ ) • backslash ( \ ) • bullet ( • ) ( · ) • degree ( ° ) • number sign / pound sign ( # ) • tilde ( ~ ) • underscore ( _ ) • vertical bar / pipe ( | ) •

!

Origins[change]

Symbol[change]

Navigation menu