55

How should the "^" symbol be pronounced? I searched on the internet but couldn't find an answer.

herisson
  • 81,803
Malwinder Singh
  • 677

6 Answers6

91

That looks like a caret symbol.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret ...

The caret /ˈkærət/ is an inverted V-shaped grapheme.

It is the spacing character ^ in ASCII [...] and other character sets that may also be called a hat, control, uparrow, or less frequently chevron, xor sign, to the power of, pointer [...] or wedge.

Officially, this character is referred to as circumflex accent in both ASCII and Unicode terminology (because of its historical use in overstrike), whereas caret refers to a similar but lowered Unicode character: U+2038 ‸ CARET.

From Computer Desktop Encyclopedia ...

caret — The small up-facing arrow on the "6" key (shift-6) on a typewriter keyboard. Also called a "hat," it is used as a symbol for several different operations. The mathematical expression 2^12 means 2 to the 12th power. It is also used as an exclusive OR operator (see XOR), and it is sometimes found as a symbol for the Control key; for example, ^Y means Ctrl-Y.

caret symbol on keyboard

KillingTime
  • 6,206
k1eran
  • 22,565
  • 10
    While it "looks" like a caret (pronounced /ˈkarət/), the dictionary definition of caret is a mark "placed below the line to indicate a proposed insertion in a text" (my emphasis). The other answers given here demonstrate that there are many other words that might apply to the symbol - context (and location of the symbol on the line) mean everything! – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Jun 21 '16 at 08:30
  • 2
    Okay, have added more details on the subtleties. – k1eran Jun 21 '16 at 08:51
  • 15
    Note Thomas' answer and the comments - technically this glyph is called a *circumflex* in the code pages, but common usage in American English is definitely to call it a *caret*. – Todd Wilcox Jun 21 '16 at 17:19
  • 10
    In Programming, where the ^ is often used, it is almost always referred to as a caret, except perhaps when it denotes exponentiation. The Wikipedia Page on ASCII characters also refers to it as a caret. – Joey Eremondi Jun 22 '16 at 08:02
  • It is also used in French for certain words ( être ) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_the_circumflex_in_French – Bakudan Jun 22 '16 at 13:18
  • 4
    @Chappo And this symbol is in fact often placed below the previous line, in order to point to something. – hamstergene Jun 22 '16 at 16:31
  • @hamstergene: umm, I'm not sure what you're getting at: isn't this what my cited definition says? But I dispute that it's "often" used that way. It's almost never used that way in non-technical printed literature. And as a diacritic (eg in Bakudan's example of être) it doesn't "point" to anything. – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Jun 23 '16 at 08:30
  • 1
    @Chappo How is it used in non-technical printed literature? I can't recall seeing it outside of smilies or pretend cartoon swearing. – Pete Kirkham Jun 23 '16 at 14:56
  • I've heard this referred to as not just a caret, but also as an "up caret." I thought this was common usage, but after a Google, I'm not so sure. – jpmc26 Jun 23 '16 at 23:41
  • @PeteKirkham: I said it's not generally used in non-technical printed literature! The dictionary meaning says it's used below the line like this: "dict‸onary". It's *handwritten* on a printed draft to show an error, eg. a letter missing. This particular use is therefore very rare in printed material of any kind, since no one would ever type the symbol, they'd simply fix the error. In non-technical literature, the "hat" is more likely to be appear as a circumflex diacritic. Eg: raison d'être. – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Jun 24 '16 at 04:20
  • @Chappo no, you said it 'almost never used that way' in non-technical printed literature, which can be read as 'of the ways it is used in non-technical printed literature, it is almost never under the line'. Thanks for clarifying. – Pete Kirkham Jun 24 '16 at 07:49
  • 1
    @Chappo Usage is of course not universal, but in my experience as a proofreader and editor, the character U+2038 ‸ CARET is not normally used to indicate a missing letter. That is reserved for U+2041 ⁁ CARET INSERTION POINT. The caret is used to indicate a missing word (i.e., ‸ indicates that the addition written in the margin should be enclosed in spaces when inserted, whereas ⁁ indicates that the addition should be inserted without added spaces). That’s in formalised proofreading, though; informally, you’ll find all sorts. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 26 '16 at 13:30
  • 1
    @JanusBahsJacquet: thanks for the clarification, and yes I'd forgotten about electronic proofing/editing. My main point was that the U+2038 ‸ CARET does not normally appear in published non-tech documents. – Chappo Hasn't Forgotten Jun 27 '16 at 07:30
  • 1
    @Chappo That much I was definitely agreeing with! – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 27 '16 at 07:51
69

As a diacritic, this symbol is a circumflex.

According to the linked Wikipedia article, hat, roof or house are used when the context is mathematics.

Thomas Francois
  • 1,798
  • 10
  • 21
  • 3
    Indeed, this is the Unicode character U+005E: CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT. – Andreas Rejbrand Jun 20 '16 at 20:15
  • 6
    True: "Officially, this character is referred to as circumflex accent in both ASCII and Unicode terminology (because of its historical use in overstrike), whereas caret refers to a similar but lowered Unicode character: U+2038 ‸ CARET." In AmEnglish, when talking about the key on the keyboard, caret is extremely common, and most people would give a blank stare if asked to type a circumflex in a password, say. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret – Todd Wilcox Jun 21 '16 at 17:17
  • 2
    @ToddWilcox much the same way that the AmEnglish keyboards "have a backquote or backtick", but the Portuguese ones "have a grave accent" (and an acute one too); you'd get the same blank stares if you talked about a grave accent, I guess. – ANeves Jun 22 '16 at 15:17
33

The answer depends entirely on context.

If you're doing quantum mechanics, it's called a hat and signifies that the thing it's on top of is an operator (something that acts on a wave function to derive an eigenvalue).

If you're reading French, it's a circumflex and signifies a miniscule prononciation difference that only native French speakers can hear. Also, that there probably used to be an s after the thing it's on top of (e.g. forêt - forest).

Oscar Bravo
  • 990
  • 3
    And if you're doing math with a limited character set, it signifies exponentiation and is spoken as "to the" or "to the power of". – Mark Jun 21 '16 at 21:51
  • In computer science, this is called a hat. – superluminary Jun 21 '16 at 21:58
  • 1
    Linguistics uses it as a modification (accent) on a character, or as a full space vowel character - [ʌ], the first vowel in hunting. The name of that symbol is also "caret", though Unicode thinks it's "small latin letter turned v" U+028C. – John Lawler Jun 21 '16 at 22:36
  • 2
    +1. This is the only answer that answers the question as written, which is about how to pronounce the character. (The other answers all provide names of the character, which is not the same thing: & is named "ampersand", but usually pronounced "and".) – ruakh Jun 21 '16 at 23:28
  • @JohnLawler I've always known that symbol as "wedge". – f'' Jun 22 '16 at 00:58
  • 1
    "a miniscule prononciation difference that only native French speakers can hear" I can hear it. – Lightness Races in Orbit Jun 22 '16 at 12:45
  • A useful link to perhaps include in the post: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_the_circumflex_in_French – SevenSidedDie Jun 23 '16 at 07:08
  • 2
    Anyone who cannot hear the difference between French notre [nɔtʁ] and nôtre [noːtʁ] needs their ears checking. On the other hand, sur ‘on’ and sûr ‘sure’ are pronounced exactly the same, and not even native French speakers can hear any difference (even if some of them probably think they can). And in Paris (and Belgium), /ɑ/ and /a/ have basically merged, so tâche ‘task’ and tache ‘stain’ are pronounced the same, though elsewhere they’re still distinct. So to say that “only native French speakers can hear” the difference is quite incorrect, in both ‘directions’. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 26 '16 at 13:19
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Oh dear... It's true what they say, it is impossible to convey humour in an internet forum. – Oscar Bravo Jun 27 '16 at 14:08
  • 1
    And, while we're conveying humor, if you're reading French it's a circonflexe. – WhatRoughBeast Jul 02 '16 at 03:11
25

A few symbols that look like ^:

  • Well, ^ itself; in maths, I usually call it hat, but another answer says Wikipedia says it is also called roof or house; as a diacritic, I would call it a circumflex, or maybe even a hat; in French, it is called "accent circumflexe" (circumflex accent), or le petit chapeau (the little hat), so yeah, hat is just fine;
  • There is the caret, which is technically the hat below the line (‸), though this is apparently called by several other names too;
  • We have turned v (ʌ), IPA symbol for the vowel in plus (which is an open-mid back unrounded vowel), also used in some languages' orthography;
  • We have the Greek capital lambda (Λ), which is, of course, read lambda or big lambda if there is a lowercase one referring to something else in a mathematical setting; this is totally unrelated to the turned v above;
  • We have the wedge (∧), used for the wedge product (or exterior product) of differential forms in Differential Geometry, for the wedge sum of topological spaces in topology, two cases where it is read wedge, and also as the logical and, where it is read, of course, and;
  • The slightly different Unicode n-ary logical and (⋀), which is probably read and.

That should be all. Apparently, caret is the most common American pronunciation of the circumflex character ^ (says this comment). Note that ^ is used to mark the CONTROL KEY, in which case it is pronounced control (e.g., ^Y stands for Ctrl+Y, which you read control-Y).

Community
  • 1
MickG
  • 713
3

In the INTERCAL programming language circa 1972, it's called shark or sharkfin.

For describing its appearance in ASCII (or other early character sets) rather than its meaning in any specific context (like "xor operator", "raise to power") and noting that it's not really the printer's caret as explained in another answer, sharkfin actually does a very good job of conveying which glyph to find, especially a non-tech person who has no idea what it's really called.

JDługosz
  • 745
  • 1
    For those who don't know, INTERCAL (full name: Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym) is, like, totally a serious representative for programming languages in general. Like, not. – leftaroundabout Jun 25 '16 at 13:28
2

Mathematicians may be a different species but at any rate they pronounce it "upper", as in $x^i$: "x upper i". I am a mathematician professionally and this usage is very common among my colleagues.

Mikhail Katz
  • 420
  • 2
    I am currently looking for one (though this is common knowledge among this particular species). – Mikhail Katz Jun 23 '16 at 13:36
  • 6
    An answer can rely on the specific expertise of the author. Describing that expertise should be part of the answer. Mikhail can you consider editing your answer. For example: "I am a mathematician and I and all of my colleagues use this pronunciation" – MetaEd Jun 23 '16 at 16:32