What exactly IS this symbol? (~) ?

Question

I know people use it as a fancy hyphen, but really, what is the name of the symbol and what is that symbol's sole purpose on the keyboard?

Wanna see it again?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Answer 1

It's called a "Tilde"...pronounce Tilda

Answer 2

its called "that squiggly thing"

purpose is to add flare, or squiggle

Answer 3

This Symbol is used Like a dot in my Arabic Language! I don't mean like a dot !! But it's Like this  ÃƒÂ˜Ã‚¢  On any word to extend it's Length.....I think that's it

Answer 4

it means "approximately"

for example, today i ate 5 ~ 10 chips

Answer 5

i know the latin N with a ~ on top has a nasal sound. or Ñ. so its used to acompany some letters , maily in other languages. I think, . sort of . maybe :)  

Answer 6

Tilda.

It is used for equivalent.

Answer 7

It is called a tilda and is used in other languages over some letters.

Answer 8

The ~ is called a tilde, and comes from the latin word titulus. It was originally used to write over a letter as a mark of abbreviation, but it has a few other uses. In some languages they use it as a fancy hyphen. Japanese use it like how we use a colon. It is also used a few ways in math equations to show one thing being equal to another.

Answer 9

idk

Answer 10

It's a tilde (pronounced til-da).  It's a diacritical mark used in Spanish above an N so you know to pronounce the N like N-ya.

Answer 11

It's used for Spanish and I think maybe Portuguese.

Like the Spanish word for pineapple is piña. It's different than just pina.

I don't know if you know what I mean, but that's what it's for.

Oh and it's called a "tilde"

Answer 12

Its called 'Tilde'

A character ( ~ ) found on computer keyboards that is generally below the  escape, or ESC, key and on the same key as the back quote that is similar to a squiggly line. Below are a few examples of how the tilde is used.

1.Shorten long file names in Microsoft Windows 95 above. For example, changing the "Program Files" directory to "Progra~1".

2.Access the console in programs and games.

3.Get to the home directory on a Linux computer (for example: cd ~).

^__^

Answer 13

It's used in the spanish language as an accent, so is the other symbol (`) on that key. They're useful if you're writing in spanish but I don't know how to use them... sorry...