# Is ~ (tilde) widely used and understood **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 20, 2026, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449 "2026-08-20T12:12:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/1 "2026-08-20T12:12:40Z")
I’ve found I use the tilde ~ almost daily in work communications (i.e. ~ 10:30am, ~ 4-5 weeks, ~ $17k). And now I’ve started using it a lot in personal texts and emails. Just yesterday I gave our dog sitter written instructions to give Maxo his medication 1 dose ~ 7am and one dose ~ 7pm. I don’t want to be a snob and confirm with people “do you know what ~ means” but I also don’t want to be presumptuous. Do you think it’s widely used enough that most people understand it? ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/2 "2026-08-20T12:31:41Z")
If you mean its informal common usage as “approximate” then yes, I think most people get it. The proper symbol is the double tilde ≈. If you mean its formal usage in mathematics and programming, probably less so. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/3 "2026-08-20T12:35:52Z")
I have used it occasionally most often in casual conversations as an accent. I have used it more formally in the past when my work dealt with numerical issues. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/4 "2026-08-20T12:53:17Z")
I often use it like the OP, even if > [@DCnDC](#): > > The proper symbol is the double tilde ≈ DC≈DC, sorry, I mean **DCnDC** is right, but the proper symbol is harder to make and I am lazy. But I also put it on top of n to make a different letter we use in Spanish: ñ. Capitalized as Ñ. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/5 "2026-08-20T13:03:36Z")
I’ve never heard of or seen the double tilde. Thanks for info, but I’m unlikely to hunt up how to produce one and start using it; I’ll keep on using what’s apparently only the approximately right symbol for “approximately”. I do frequently use a tilde that way, though usually in notes to myself. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/6 "2026-08-20T13:08:19Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > If you mean its informal common usage as “approximate” then yes, I think most people get it. The proper symbol is the double tilde ≈. I think this is a little biased - it may be that most people in your circle would get it , but I certainly wouldn’t expect a dog-sitter or a home attendant to understand it. They might, but I wouldn’t expect it. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/7 "2026-08-20T13:20:07Z")
Behold, the triple tilde ≋! ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/8 "2026-08-20T13:36:44Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Do you think it’s widely used enough that most people understand it? Native English speakers? Probably. But I wouldn’t use it for work-related communications. I would write out approximately or circa, so I don’t have to worry if Google translate understands the tilde. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/9 "2026-08-20T13:38:06Z")
That’s the ASCII symbol for rockabilly hairdresser, hadn’t seen it for a long time! Or was it Zapf Dingsbat? ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/10 "2026-08-20T14:18:22Z")
To the OP-- I wouldn’t assume the use of the tilde as ‘approximate’ to be very widely known, and I wouldn’t use it in your case. But not only for the reason that it’s possibly not widely known. If your dog sitter doesn’t know the meaning, they’ll just be confused. But if they do know the meaning, why give them leeway? Just say a dose at 7am and another at 7pm. Your dog sitter may be very punctilious, but in my experience if you tell someone to do something or show up ‘around’ a certain time, they may take that very loosely, like “within an hour or so”. Tell them an exact time, and they may still be late, but only by more like 5 or 10 minutes. At least, that was my experience with our kids growing up-- I’d tell them "be ready to leave _ **absolutely no later** _ than (_time 10-15 minutes before the actual time we need to leave_) and we’d still barely make the actual time. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/11 "2026-08-20T14:23:55Z")
🎶 Waltzing My Tilde 🎶 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/12 "2026-08-20T14:28:24Z")
My understanding is that the _actual_ meaning of the tilde varies by context? This context is clear to anyone who has never even seen one before. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/13 "2026-08-20T15:19:09Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > This context is clear to anyone who has never even seen one before. I very much doubt that. It’s clear to me; but only because I learned it years ago. I agree both that it’s a common use, and that I wouldn’t use it in a note to a catsitter without clarification, because “common” isn’t the same as “ubiquitous”. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/14 "2026-08-20T15:29:33Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Do you think it’s widely used enough that most people understand it? I think that general literacy is so low that this is profoundly unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/15 "2026-08-20T15:47:24Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I very much doubt that. It’s clear to me; but only because I learned it years ago It is literally a wave at the number. Can’t get more self explanatory by context than that. (And FWIW used as an “approximately” as in rounding by most in middle school years. Not very high level stuff.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/16 "2026-08-20T16:05:41Z")
I don’t see the tilde meaning around or approximately used outside of moderately high level works. Even newspapers that follow the AP stylebook won’t use it. I wouldn’t expect anybody young who isn’t a bookworm to understand it without an explanation. As @solost suggested, either just use the times or make sure anything you write down is talked about beforehand. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/17 "2026-08-20T16:14:55Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It is literally a wave at the number. Can’t get more self explanatory by context than that. Looks like that to you. Even if we assume, implausibly, that it looks like that to everybody: if you wave at something, what I see is that you’re trying to draw attention to it; which could be taken at least as easily (if not more so) as meaning “this exact number is important” instead of meaning “this exact number isn’t important”. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/18 "2026-08-20T16:18:16Z")
~ is a shortcut to your home path in Unix & Linux operating systems. I thought everyone knew that. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/19 "2026-08-20T17:22:28Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > ~ is a shortcut to your home path in Unix & Linux Really people, get with it, this is the tilde’s primary use. It’s not _approximately_ your home directory, it is exactly your home directory. Sure, you can type out `$HOME`, but more characters, and it doesn’t help at all if you’re referring to some other users home directory, `~muldoonthief`. I mean, doing something like `$(getent passwd muldoonthief | cut -d: -f6)` is just stupid when a `~` is all that’s needed. It even works in urls. Back in the 90s most personal homepages were something like `http://www.example.com/~echoreply` ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2026, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449/20 "2026-08-20T17:38:08Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It is literally a wave at the number. Can’t get more self explanatory by context than that. I have long known what a tilde is, but never once thought of it that way. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-tilde-widely-used-and-understood/1032449.md?page=2)