What is "at sign"

alt. the symbol @ n. the symbol @

The at sign, @, normally read aloud as "at", also commonly called the at symbol or commercial at, is originally an accounting and commercial invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of" (e.g. 7 widgets @ £2 = £14). In contemporary use, the at sign is most commonly used in email addresses. It was not included on the keyboard of the earliest commercially successful typewriters, but was on at least one 1889 model and the very successful Underwood models from the "Underwood No. 5" in 1900 onward. It is now universally included on computer keyboards. The mark is encoded at .

The fact that there is no single word in English for the symbol has prompted some writers to use the French arobase or Spanish and Portuguese arroba, or to coin new words such as asperand, ampersat and strudel), but none of these have achieved wide usage.