What symbol is the logogram for the English word "and"?

The ampersand (&) is the logogram for the English word “and.”

Its shape began as a ligature of the Latin letters e and t, which together spell et, meaning “and.” Roman scribes joined those letters in handwriting, and the form gradually became more stylized through medieval scripts and Renaissance typography. Modern versions can look quite different across typefaces, but they preserve that historical origin.

The word ampersand developed from the phrase “and per se and,” once used when reciting the character as an additional symbol after the alphabet. The phrase was eventually run together in speech. The symbol is common in business names, headings, citations, and compact writing, though “and” is usually preferred in ordinary prose. In computing, & can also have technical meanings, including bitwise AND or an address-of operator, depending on the programming language.