Dollar sign

How to type it

Left index finger with Shift.

Common uses

• The dollar sign goes before an amount of money in the United States and several other countries, as in $19.99.
• It is also used for pesos and other currencies; for example, Mexico uses $ for the peso.

Less common uses

• In Unix shells, $ reads the value of a variable, so $HOME gives your home directory.
• A shell prompt often ends in $, which signals that the shell is ready for a command.
• In spreadsheets, $ locks a row or column in a formula, as in $A$1.