Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The symbol (¶).

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The character ¶, used to mark the beginning of a new paragraph: same as paragraph, 4.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Print.), obsolete a paragraph mark, ¶.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The paragraph mark .

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration (influenced by crow) of Middle English pilcraft, pilcrow, paragraph, alteration (influenced by Middle English pill, to peel, make bald, and craft, skill, work, piece of work) of Old French paragrafe, pelagraphe, paragraph; see paragraph.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably an alteration of Middle English pylcrafte, modification of Late Latin paragraphus.

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Examples

  • Who knew, for example, that the backward P printer's mark that denotes a paragraph break is called a pilcrow or that the only letters formed in a clockwise direction are m, n, h, k, b, p and r?

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Who knew, for example, that the backward P printer's mark that denotes a paragraph break is called a pilcrow or that the only letters formed in a clockwise direction are m, n, h, k, b, p and r?

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • nyokki: what i did is google the word pilcrow and i saw the symbol and copied it instead of going in character map. hope it makes it easier for you

    300 – Prepare for glory | My[confined]Space 2009

  • There used to be a clunky paragraph sign known as a pilcrow ; initially it was a C with a slash drawn through it.

    Is This the Future of Punctuation Henry Hitchings 2011

  • There is also a deep look at the @ symbol's new-found stardom, the octothorpe enjoying a new lease of life renamed as the "hashtag" in Twitter parlance, and the secretive pilcrow.

    Internet picks of the week 2011

  • I'll start with remarks on little known formal names for some punctuation marks. pilcrow: ¶

    Archive 2008-05-01 2008

  • MS Word wants to make anything that looks like a quote mark with a space, tab, or pilcrow in front of it into some kind of open-quote mark.

    Archive 2008-05-01 2008

  • Other terms do it for me too: recently I was reminded by India that the symbol for a paragraph is called a pilcrow.

    Dear Clusterflock | clusterflock 2009

  • The third type has a pilcrow ¶ but no paragraph break.

    A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes Richard Sherry

  • In this e-text, the second type of paragraph is marked with a pilcrow ¶.

    A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes Richard Sherry

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