It Started on a Wall in Pompeii<\/h2>\n
The ampersand is a ligature, two letters fused into one. They are the e<\/strong> and the t<\/strong> of the Latin word et<\/em>, which means “and”.<\/p>\n Roman scribes writing quickly in cursive often joined the two letters, because lifting the pen costs time. The oldest known example of the joined et<\/em> was scratched on a wall in Pompeii and survived under the ash of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Some anonymous Roman doodled two letters together, and two thousand years later we’re still using that doodle.<\/p>\n In late Roman cursive of the 4th century, the et<\/em> ligature became more fluid. By the 8th century, Merovingian scribes were writing forms that already look surprisingly modern. In Carolingian minuscule of the 9th century, the sign settled into a shape that is almost identical to the & we type today.<\/p>\n The easiest way to understand this journey is to see it. Below, each period is represented by a font from the WhatFontIs collection that revives the type of that era: from uncial, where the “e” and “t” are just starting to join, to Garamond’s Renaissance italic, Caslon’s classic shape, Bodoni’s high contrast, Futura’s Bauhaus geometry and Inter, built for today’s screens.<\/p>\n The ampersand had a competitor. Back in the 1st century BC, Tiro, Cicero’s secretary, invented a shorthand system to take down his master’s speeches. One of its signs, \u204a, also meant “and”.<\/p>\n For centuries the two lived side by side. Old English and Middle English manuscripts, including the one that preserves Beowulf<\/em>, use Tironian et, not the ampersand. Modern editions often transcribe it as “&”, which hides how separate their histories are.<\/p>\n In the end the ampersand won almost everywhere. Tironian et survives today mainly in Irish Gaelic, where you can still see it on road signs, meaning agus<\/em> (“and”).<\/p>\n This is the part that surprises most people. In 19th-century British and American schools, children recited the alphabet with an extra character at the end: &<\/strong>.<\/p>\n There was a rule for letters that were also words on their own, such as “A” and “I”. Pupils said “A per se<\/em> A”, meaning “A by itself is A”. When they reached the last sign they said: “X, Y, Z, and per se<\/em> and.”<\/p>\n Recited fast and often, “and per se and” turned into “ampersand”. Early spellings show the change in progress: “ampuse and” (1777), “appersiand” (1785) and “ampus-and” (1859). In Adam Bede<\/em> (1859), George Eliot has a character call it “ampusand”.<\/p>\n The word stayed and the letter status didn’t. By the end of the 19th century the & had dropped out of the alphabet, but by then it had its name.<\/p>\n (The story that the name comes from the physicist Andr\u00e9-Marie Amp\u00e8re is just a myth.)<\/p>\n Typographers love the ampersand because it has no single correct form. An “a” has to look like an “a”. An & can look like an “Et”, a figure eight with a tail, or a pretzel, and it’s still clearly an ampersand.<\/p>\n There are two main families:<\/p>\n Many typographers recommend borrowing the italic ampersand even in roman text, especially in headlines and logos, because it is often the most beautiful glyph in the whole family. Some typefaces offer several versions: Adobe Garamond Premier Pro has ten ampersands, and the calligraphic Poetica has 62.<\/p>\n To see how far this freedom goes, we scanned the WhatFontIs collection and found about 800 fonts with a distinctive ampersand. Here are our favorites: from the swirls of Kings Caslon Display to IM FELL French Canon Italic, which carries the 17th-century Oxford tradition, and P22 Hoy Bold Italic, where you can still clearly read the Latin “Et”.<\/p>\n In 1953 Jan Tschichold published a full study of the sign, Formenwandlungen der &-Zeichen<\/em>, translated in 1957 as The Ampersand: Its Origin and Development<\/em>. It’s a slim book that shows the shape changing from Pompeii to the 19th century. Its existence says a lot: the ampersand had earned a monograph of its own.<\/p>\n Some designers push the sign to the limit. In Barrel of Ninjas the & is literally a ninja. Better Black Italic simply writes the word “and”. Mingler Snowy covers it in snow, Floral Silhouette hides a butterfly in it, and Redaction 35 Bold breaks it into pixels. They’re all real glyphs, mapped to the & key. If you can still recognize them, it’s because the idea of “and” holds the shape together even when nothing classic is left of it.<\/p>\n The & never really retired. Here are a few places where it still does real work:<\/p>\n So the scribble from Pompeii now sits in every query string you load.<\/p>\n In formal writing, most style guides say no: write “and” in running text. The & belongs in names, titles, headlines, logos and tight spaces such as tables or buttons.<\/p>\n In design, though, the & is one of the best tools you have. A well-chosen ampersand can carry a whole logo or a wedding invitation. If you want to see what a typeface can do, look at its ampersand first. It shows the designer’s personality.<\/p>\n The ampersand began as a scribe’s shortcut, became a letter of the alphabet, lost that status, and kept its place anyway. It’s a sign that has outlived its own language.<\/p>\n Which typeface has your favorite ampersand? Tell us in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From a Pompeii wall to your code editor: the history of the ampersand, the 27th letter of the alphabet, plus the most beautiful and unusual & glyphs in fonts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76102,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-fonts"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Timeline](\"https:\/\/www.whatfontis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/amp_evolution.png\")
The Rival: Tironian Et<\/h2>\n
The 27th Letter of the Alphabet<\/h2>\n
Where Type Designers Get Creative<\/h2>\n
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![\"24](\"https:\/\/www.whatfontis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/amp_most_beautiful.png\")
When the & Stops Looking Like an &<\/h2>\n
![\"12](\"https:\/\/www.whatfontis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/amp_most_unusual.png\")
From Contracts to Code<\/h2>\n
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&&<\/code> is logical AND, &<\/code> is the bitwise operator or the address-of operator in C, and in a shell a trailing & runs a process in the background. In URLs it separates parameters, and in HTML it starts every entity, such as &<\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nShould You Use It in Text?<\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n