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I was watching a Linux tutorial where the keystrokes where displayed. I cannot identify the key matching this:

symbol

What key is it?

Edit: It is from this tutorial.

Uwe Keim
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Sylario
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  • It could be the mouse "back" button. It's definitely not a key on an actual keyboard unless it is the backspace being translated to some "back" or some such. – Mokubai Jun 10 '21 at 10:28
  • It was a vim tutorial, so it is a keyboard key – Sylario Jun 10 '21 at 10:29
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    Does this answer your question? [Weird symbols for key combinations on a Mac](https://superuser.com/questions/46452/weird-symbols-for-key-combinations-on-a-mac) – Russell Borogove Jun 11 '21 at 02:10
  • In a sense, but I would never had guess it was a mac symbol. – Sylario Jun 11 '21 at 09:49
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    It can't be a dupe, because this question is not about Mac. It's merely 'coincidental' that two OSes use the same standard, internationally-accepted symbol ;) – Tetsujin Jun 11 '21 at 11:57
  • Official document: [What are those symbols shown in menus on Mac?](https://support.apple.com/en-vn/guide/mac-help/cpmh0011/mac) – phuclv Jun 15 '21 at 08:07

2 Answers2

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It's 'Broken Circle with Northwest Arrow' Unicode U+238B UTF-8 E2 BE BB

⎋

It's often used as the symbol for the Esc key - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esc_key#Symbol and even has its own ISO Standard - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ISOIEC-9995-7-029--ISO-7000-2029--Symbol-for-Escape.svg

It seems symbols like this are mainly used by Apple. They are all valid unicode. It enables menu shortcuts to be displayed easily, e.g.

enter image description here

After many comments on the topic, I doubt Apple were instrumental in the adoption of this symbol, they merely started using it once it was. Menus used to use the older

␛

glyph back in the day.

Tetsujin
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    Well TIL. In nearly 30 years this is the first time I've ever seen that symbol. – Mokubai Jun 10 '21 at 10:42
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    I've been in IT for 30 year and have been messing with computers for longer. I have never seen that symbol used for Esc. – Tonny Jun 10 '21 at 10:47
  • @Mokubai & Tonny - I actually 'just knew' what it was & looked it up in the system character viewer - see https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/cpmh0011/mac and https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/8738/what-is-this-symbol-it-is-listed-as-menu-shortcut Seems it might be Apple/nix rather than a Windows thing. Never actually thought about it before. – Tetsujin Jun 10 '21 at 11:02
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    I love the range of answers there that go from "I don't know why Apple use this non-standard symbol" (which according to your Wiki *is* standard as it's even got an ISO number) to "It's the escape key, you know the one on the top left of your keyboard with `Esc` written on it" with no explanation of why there is some silly symbol for it... Good old Apple, simplifying things in the most complicated and obtuse ways possible. – Mokubai Jun 10 '21 at 11:06
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    Apple has symbols for everything;) They're usually printed on the keyboard & can be displayed in menus. ⌘⇪⌥⌃⌫ etc. All are valid unicode. Windows only seems to have the 'Windows' & 'Menu' keys with symbols… neither of which are Unicode characters as far as I can determine. – Tetsujin Jun 10 '21 at 11:14
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    @Mokubai Typical of [standards...](https://xkcd.com/927/) – J... Jun 10 '21 at 19:46
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    @Tonny yeah, my first response to "It's often used as the symbol for the Esc key" was "often used **by whom?** Certainly not me, and I've been using computers for **40** years. – RonJohn Jun 10 '21 at 19:51
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    @Tonny the problem is you have been in IT, and messing with computers. This is Apple, they care nothing for those things. – PcMan Jun 10 '21 at 20:47
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    @pcman I've been an Apple user for almost as long as I'm messing with computers. (First Mac I used was a MacIntosh IIx at work in the late 80's) I'm typing this on a iMac in fact. I never noticed this symbol is part of the Force Quit shortcut shown in the System-menu. It has been staring me in the face for years and I never noticed before. (I just hit the shortcut when needed. I rarely use the System-menu to select Force Quit.) – Tonny Jun 10 '21 at 21:28
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    Windows uses names for most keys, including the modifier keys. It really confuses me when I see a Mac using `⌥⇧⌘` as I have no idea which of Ctrl, Alt, or Meta they want. – Neil Jun 10 '21 at 22:15
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    A tech company tried to represent an abstract concept with an abstract symbol. That's just awful. – Andreas Jun 10 '21 at 22:15
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    I am channeling the spirit of Charles Babbage and in over almost 150 years never has that symbol ever been used to mean 'Escape'. – LawrenceC Jun 10 '21 at 22:39
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    @gidds No it doesn't. – Russell Borogove Jun 11 '21 at 02:11
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    @gidds it doesn't. [The power symbol is ⌽](https://web.archive.org/web/20080623231149/http://www.osxkeyboardshortcuts.com/keyboard-symbols.html), not ⎋. It's also the common [power symbol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol) in appliances – phuclv Jun 11 '21 at 04:32
  • @Neil: None of the above. The three symbols you posted are for the *Option*, *Shift*, and *Command* keys, respectively. And at least the middle one is fairly common even in non-Apple ecosystems. In fact, it has been decades since I have seen a Windows keyboard or generic keyboard with the word "Umschalten" printed on the key rather than the up-arrow. – Jörg W Mittag Jun 11 '21 at 05:33
  • @JörgWMittag all that's technically correct, but if I see ⌥, I go: "oh, that's the key that's in the place of *Alt*" – muru Jun 11 '21 at 06:10
  • @phuclv You live and learn... – gidds Jun 11 '21 at 07:31
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    _"The keyboard symbol for the ESC key is standardized in ISO/IEC 9995-7 as symbol 29"_ → Woah, it's standard, how come I never came across it in 25+years? Oh, wait... the "standard" is from 2017 :-| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_9995#ISO/IEC_9995-7 – walen Jun 11 '21 at 07:54
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    @walen IIUC the use of the symbols in the ISO standard is from 2012. Their incorporation into Unicode is from 2017. – user133831 Jun 11 '21 at 11:53
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    The point of all these icons is to be language-independent, rather than favoring the English words "Control", "Shift", "Command", etc. – Barmar Jun 11 '21 at 14:29
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    Suspect there'd be fewer comments if the poster had said "sometimes used" rather than asserting "often used"... – Gwyn Evans Jun 11 '21 at 16:14
  • @Tetsujin the Windows key can never have a Unicode character associated with it because Unicode does not allow adding trademarked logos. Same reason why there are no Olympic Rings which naively would feel like an odd omission. Notice that Apple devices might show an Apple logo character, but that’s using a private range code point and it’s not a standard glyph. I suppose an Application key image could theoretically be added if wanted – Euro Micelli Jun 11 '21 at 16:25
  • IMHO "often" seems like a serious exaggeration. A. First time I see this in ~30 years. B. 0/10 keyboards (of at least 5 different language layouts) in my house have this symbol. C. Went through several pages of keyboards (of various brands, including Apple ones) in a big store.. none used it. So i looked at various Apple notebooks... again nothing. | I agree that I didn't look a all of them, but if this is used often, where is it? – Dan Mašek Jun 11 '21 at 20:09
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    Or is this just often used in Apple software or literature to represent "escape", but not on the physical key? (Last time I've worked with a Mac is over 20 years ago...). – Dan Mašek Jun 11 '21 at 20:20
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    @DanMašek - it's probably a bit random, similar to the design on all their keyboards across the years & languages. Some keyboards have the words, some have the icons, some have both. i don't think Esc has made it to a keyboard as an icon yet, though [it's not on the new iMac M1 for instance]. I think even as a menu symbol it's relatively new, I do seem to recall menus showing 'esc' from years ago [which is also unicode ␛], not ⎋, but the oldest macOS I have in service is El Capitan & it's the symbol by then. – Tetsujin Jun 12 '21 at 11:00
  • @user133831 You're right, on second read I found it's from 2009 actually. But still... – walen Jun 14 '21 at 08:09
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It is a symbol used for Escape on some Apple inspired keycap sets for computer keyboards. For example Drop Biip

enter image description here

The symbol appears on some commercial keyboards, such as the Matias Tactile Pro 3

enter image description here

It's also an ISO standard

ISO 7000 - 2029
Standard : ISO 7000 — Graphical symbols for use on equipment — Registered symbols
Committee :ISO/TC 145/SC 3ICS : 01.080.20

⎋ Escape

Reference No : 2029
Registration date : 2004-01-15
Status : Active

Title/Meaning/Referent : Escape Function/description : To identify the control to cancel the current action or exit from the current state.

This symbol is part of collection(s)
ISO 7000 Graphical symbols for use on equipment
ISO 7000 / IEC 60417 Graphical symbols for use on equipment

Restricted application : No
User population :
Orientation Dependent: No
Referenced in : ISO/IEC 9995-7, ISO/IEC 13251, ISO 3767-1, ISO 6405-1

RedGrittyBrick
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    Interestingly, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_keyboards it seems Apple themselves never used the symbol on the Esc key... – jcaron Jun 12 '21 at 12:21