Tilde facts for kids

~ Tilde
Diacritics
	accent
	acute, apex( ´ )
	double acute( ˝ )
	grave( ` )
	double grave( ̏ )
	breve( ˘ )
	inverted breve( ̑ )
	caron / háček( ˇ )
	cedilla / cédille( ¸ )
	diaeresis, umlaut)( ¨ )
	circumflex / vokáň( ˆ )
	dot( · )
	hook( ̡ ̢ )
	hook above / dấu hỏi( ̉ )
	horn / dấu móc( ̛ )
	macron, macron below( ¯ ̱ )
	ogonek / nosinė( ˛ )
	ring / kroužek( ˚, ˳ )
	rough breathing / dasia( ῾ )
	sicilicus( ͗ )
	smooth breathing / psili( ᾿ )
Marks sometimes used as diacritics
	apostrophe( ’ )
	bar( \| )
	colon( : )
	comma( , )
	hyphen( ˗ )
	tilde( ~ )
	titlo( ҃ )
Diacritical marks in other scripts
	Arabic diacritics
	Greek diacritics
	Gurmukhi diacritics
	Hebrew diacritics
	Indic diacritics
	anusvara( ं ং ം )
	chandrabindu( ँ ఁ )
	nukta( ़ )
	virama( ् ് ్ ් ್ )
	IPA diacritics
	Japanese diacritics
	dakuten( ﾞ )
	handakuten( ﾟ )
	Khmer diacritics
	Syriac diacritics
	Thai diacritics
Related
	Quick facts for kidsPunctuation marks

The tilde ( ~ ) can be many things, such as a diacritic. Many languages use tildes. Two of these are Spanish and Portuguese.

In Spanish, the tilde, which is only put over the N ( Ñ ), makes it sound like [ɲ] (like 'ny' in canyon) instead of [n].

The tilde also appears in Portuguese where it is used to nasalise (meaning to sound them through the nose) the vowels "a" (ã) and "o" (õ).

In UNIX operating systems, a tilde represents the user's "home" directory.

The tilde is also used to denote when something is an estimate, such as ~24 meaning approximately 24.

On most QWERTY keyboards, you can type a tilde by holding down the shift key and pressing the "`" (single back quote). This key is in the upper left corner of the keyboard, below the esc (escape) key and to the left of the key that you use to type the number 1 or an exclamation mark (!).

Wikipedia editors sign their comments on Talk pages with four tildes (~~~~).

Images for kids

Text of Exeter Domesday Book of 1086
Raised tilde from a dot matrix printer