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  1. tilde love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A diacritical mark ( ~ ) placed over the letter n in Spanish to indicate the palatal nasal sound (ny), as in cañon, or over a vowel in Portuguese to indicate nasalization, as in lã, pão.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A diacritic mark (˜) placed over the letter n in Spanish to indicate that it is sounded as a palatal n, or very nearly like n followed by y, as in señor, pronounced sã˙nyôr′ , cañon, pronounced känyôn′ , and hence in English written canyon. This sound is represented in Portuguese by nh, in Italian and French by gn. The mark ˜, also written as a straight dash, like the macron, ¯, was originally a small n, ñ representing nn, as in año for anno, from Latin annus. The mark was much used for n or m in medieval mannscripts, and hence in early printed books, being put above the preceding letter to save space: thus, mõumētū for monumentum. The tilde is also used in the Roman notation of Oriental and other languages: thus, ñ for the Sanskrit palatal nasal. It is sometimes used by analogy over l to indicate l followed by y (Spanish and French ll, Portuguese lh, Italian gl).

Wiktionary

  1. n. The grapheme of character ~.
  2. n. A key found on some types of keyboards.
  3. n. logic The character used to represent negation, usually ~ or ¬.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The accentual mark placed over n, and sometimes over l, in Spanish words [thus, ñ, �], indicating that, in pronunciation, the sound of the following vowel is to be preceded by that of the initial, or consonantal, y.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a diacritical mark (~) placed over the letter n in Spanish to indicate a palatal nasal sound or over a vowel in Portuguese to indicate nasalization

Etymologies

  1. From Spanish tilde, from Latin titulus ("superscript"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Spanish, alteration of obsolete Catalan title, from Latin titulus, superscription. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “The tilde is the ~, probably located at the upper left of your keyboard.”

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en]

  • “Far too many people mistakenly refer to this key as the tilde (~) key because the tilde is the shifted character over the accent grave on standard US keyboards.”

    Adobe Blogs

  • “It's called a tilde, and it lets you turn the gravity off.”

    Computer And Video Games

  • “And I had one other idea convoed to me through Etsy... a "tilde" which is that squiggly punctuation mark used in the Spanish language over an "N".”

    Kiss My Curvy "S" or What Should I Name These?

  • “Use a "tilde" e.g.: "~infosys" finds IT companies similar to Infosys 13”

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows

  • “I need a better domain, one without a tilde which is a pain to type, though once you add it to your Blackberry bookmarks it’s just a click.”

    Scripting News for 6/28/2007 « Scripting News Annex

  • “To type the ñ Press the shift key and the tilde key ~ nothing will happen until you press the n key, when you do it in sequence you will get the ñ.”

    Should vs. Must?

  • “ALABAMA ADOPTS SB 1070-STYLE LAW - The state known far and wide for its history of treating people who don't look like Pat Boone with the utmost respect continued to honor that tradition today when its governor signed a bill that will basically create an environment where white people won't want to be seen near anyone with a tilde in their name.”

    The Huffington Post: HUFFPOST HILL - Gingrich Staffers Break Free

  • “In mine all the Spanish words that had a tilde were misspelled -- a quirk of the computer code apparently.”

    Publishers and bloggers

  • “The law prohibits individuals from transporting or in anyway "concealing" undocumented immigrants, requires schools to check the citizenship status of students and, generally speaking, requires non-Hispanic citizens to scream "COOTIES!" every time they find themselves in the presence a caramel-skinned individual or see a tilde on a government form.”

    The Huffington Post: HUFFPOST HILL - Congress Turns The Sky Into Milton Friedman's Playground

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. twiddle
  1. squiggle

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. diacritic
  1. diacritical mark

same context (15)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. aptain
  2. 'black'
  3. élan
  1. c
  2. ~
  3. stylishness
  1. ~*
  2. disjunction
  3. '~
  1. baggage-car
  2. yin-yang
  3. reassembly
  1. t
  2. stiffener
  3. )=

reverse dictionary (2)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. ana
  1. tittle

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. spanish

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Lists

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Comments

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  • Prolagus Everybody stand back! I know regular expressions. :D Jan 6, 2009

  • applefat =~ (not ~=) is used in the computer language Perl, and acts as the "binding operator" for regular expressions. Jan 6, 2009

  • whichbe also known as the 'swung dash'. Apr 22, 2008

  • chained_bear It's searchable online, but I believe you have to be a subscriber to use it. My employer is a subscriber and I use it frequently at work.

    They do have an RSS feed (or is that redundant?) for a Word of the Day, which I've never used but it seems like it would be fun. Maybe I'll try it. Feb 13, 2007

  • uselessness I stand corrected. I need to pick up the OED. Or is it searchable online? Feb 13, 2007

  • chained_bear I've always pronounced it "tildeh," or "tild-uh," as seanahan listed it. I have only ever known it as the symbol inkhorn cited so I can't speak to that usage, though OED lists its secondary meaning as "a symbol in Math. and Logic, chiefly to indicate negation." Feb 13, 2007

  • seanahan Twiddle is a thing used in math. I've heard the pronunciations "tild", "tildee", and "tild-uh". I can't remember where I saw ~= used to be not equals, so I'll have to track it down. I've also seen ~ used to be about equals. Feb 4, 2007

  • uselessness I always thought that use meant approximately, not not. Handwritten on paper you'd see one tilde drawn above another, to make a squiggly equals sign. It's the visual cue for for "fuzzy" equality, used when the answer is close to a given value but probably not exactly that value. Just like the analog counterpart to != is an equals sign with a slash through it, evoking a "no parking" symbol to nullify the operator. Then again, we all tend to draw symbols differently, and maybe use different visual cues; so I'm not saying you're wrong. I just haven't seen that before.

    By the way, let's set the record straight... is it pronounced "tild" or "tildee?" Or "twiddle," which is another thing I've never seen before? Feb 4, 2007

  • seanahan This symbol is used in various places as a "not" symbol, sometimes pronounced as "twiddle", with "~=" akin to "!=". Feb 3, 2007

  • chained_bear There's a cool article I happened to find and have no affiliation with whatsoever. http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/10/04/history_of_the_tilde Feb 3, 2007

  • inkhorn Tilde Accent: jalapeño Dec 19, 2006

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‘tilde’ has been looked up 3577 times, loved by 2 people, added to 25 lists, commented on 11 times, and has a Scrabble score of 6.