# Easy Math Question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-math-question/202301>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 18, 2003, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-math-question/202301 "2003-09-18T04:29:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hombre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecb155/32.png) [@Hombre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hombre)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-math-question/202301/1 "2003-09-18T04:29:49Z")

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What is the name for the ‘division’ sign in math terms?

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**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-math-question/202301/2 "2003-09-18T04:32:41Z")

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I’m guessing here, but would [virgule](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=virgule&r=67) be the term you’re looking for?

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**Author:** ![Hombre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecb155/32.png) [@Hombre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hombre)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-math-question/202301/3 "2003-09-18T04:36:10Z")

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Thank you

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**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-math-question/202301/4 "2003-09-18T04:46:23Z")

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In case you were referring to the division sign with a horizontal dash between two centered dots, which I haven’t seen used since grade school, its LaTeX code is \div and its HTML code is ÷ but it doesn’t have a special name apart from “division sign”.

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**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-math-question/202301/5 "2003-09-18T05:14:49Z")

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This [Brief History of the Notation of Boole’s Algebra](http://www.hf.uio.no/filosofi/njpl/vol2no1/history/history.pdf) discusses the development of the modern infix notation for binary operations and relations on pages 2-4. Most of the symbols used are not given names.

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**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-math-question/202301/6 "2003-09-18T10:28:29Z")

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The _symbol_ or the _operator_?

IIRC mathematicians can be quite anal about this at times, eg. the ‘upside-down-capital-delta’, ‘nabla’ or ‘del’ symbol is used to represent ‘curl’ or ‘divergence’ operators depending on context.

FTR I’m a maths student and I’ve never seen ‘horizontal line with two dots’ called anything. ‘/’ is generally treated as another way of writing a fraction, and called ‘over’, as it x/(2+x) is ‘x over 2-plus-x’ and (x+2)/x is ‘x plus 2 all over x’.

It really depends why you want to know…