tilde
Americannoun
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Phonetics, Orthography. a diacritic (~) placed over an n, as in Spanish mañana, to indicate a palatal nasal sound or over a vowel, as in Portuguese são, to indicate nasalization.
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Mathematics. a symbol (∼) indicating equivalency or similarity between two values.
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Logic. a similar symbol indicating negation.
noun
Etymology
Origin of tilde
1860–65; < Spanish < Latin titulus superscription. See title
Explanation
A tilde is a character on a keyboard that looks like a wavy line (~). The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters instead of the English 26, because it includes both n and ñ, each of which is pronounced differently. The tilde has other uses as well. It is a diacritical mark in other languages, such as Portuguese, but it is also used in logic and math. When you put a tilde before a number, for example, you're saying that the number is approximate. If you wanted to say that your club had about $1,500 in the bank, you could use a tilde to write that the club had ~$1,500.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
When Pitbull did an update in 2011, “Shake Senora,” he pronounced the tilde.
From New York Times • Apr. 26, 2023
When media used his full name, they omitted the tilde in “Cañedo.”
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 27, 2022
Saldaña has mostly been billed without the tilde in projects like "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Avengers: Endgame" but now she wants to move forward with it written correctly.
From Reuters • Oct. 20, 2021
Designed by Oscar Niemeyer in the shape of the tilde above the “a” in São Paulo, the Copan celebrated its 50th birthday last year with middle age starting to take its toll.
From The Guardian • Nov. 30, 2017
The predictable nasalization—marked by a tilde in the text—has not been included in the translation unless the presence of nasalization is morphologically significant; e.g., tobu:t�da.
From Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language by Spear, Richard L.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
