This article describes the typographical or mathematical symbol. For other meanings, see Degree

The degree symbol (°, Unicode: U+00B0, HTML: °) is a typographical symbol, or glyph, that is used to represent degrees of arc (see Geographic coordinate system ) or temperature.

1°, 2°, 3°, etc., are also common abbreviations, especially in the medical field, for primary, secondary, tertiary, and so on.

Due to a similar appearance in some fonts in print and on computer screens, some other characters may be mistakenly substituted for it: the "masculine ordinal indicator" (U+00BA, º ), the "ring above" (U+02DA, ˚ ), "superscript zero" (U+2070, ⁰ ), superscript zero proper ( ⁰ ) or superscript letter "o" ( ^o ), and the "ring operator" (U+2218, ∘ ).

On Macintosh computers, the degree sign can be typed by option-shift-8 on most keyboard layouts, including Australian, British, Canadian, US and US Extended layouts.

On Windows computers, the degree sign can be typed by ALT + 0176 on the Numeric Keypad. This will require activating the numeric keypad function on keyboards without a separate numeric pad.

Typography

In the case of degrees of arc, the degree symbol is always printed with no space between it and the number.

In the case of degrees of temperature, several scientific and engineering standards bodies, BIPM and the U.S. Government Printing Office prescribe printing the degree symbol with a space between the degree symbol and the number, as in "10 °C". However, in many professionally typeset works, including scientific works, such as those published by The University of Chicago Press or Oxford University Press, the degree symbol is printed with no spaces between the number, the symbol, and the C or F representing Celsius or Fahrenheit, as in "10°C". Still others place the space between the degree sign and the letter (10° C), in a manner probably no longer recommended by any of the major style guides. Note that the degree symbol is never used to refer to temperatures measured in kelvins - the freezing point of water, for instance, is simply written as 273.15 K.

References

Mathematical symbols | Gradtegn | Gradzeichen | ° | Grad (symbol) | Знак градуса | Gradtecken (symbol)