What is the most professional name for "squiggly bracket"?

Question

I am creating a software training video and need to refer to these brackets:

{ }

I usually call them "squiggly brackets" or "curly brackets".

Is there a more professional name?

I have read all the answers, but I think that "squiggly" is so much cooler than "curly" that that is what I shall use from now on. I shall blog, write authoritative textbooks and popular novels, and a decade from now it will be the new and undisputed standard. — MickeyfAgain_BeforeExitOfSO, Sep 21 '11 at 23:32
@rudra - The stackexchange automatically reprints old questions to the front page. There are details about how/why this is done in one of the general FAQ pages. — oosterwal, Jul 11 '12 at 04:59
@mickeyf If you like squiggly brackets, then I promise you that you’ll enjoy squirrelly brackets even more, which are kinda like curly brackets but squirrellier. — tchrist, Apr 07 '13 at 20:44

score 65 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 08 '18 at 15:05

65

curly braces (or 'braces' for short)

This is more common than curly brackets, to design blocks in programming languages.

See Why curly braces? (WebArchive) for more.

Curly braces are one means of denoting a lexical scope. Lexical scopes are blocks of code from which names do not escape

See also:

edited Jun 08 '18 at 15:05

myrdd

103

answered Aug 08 '10 at 13:51

VonC

14,744

10

Actually, I refer to them just as 'braces'. 'curly' is more a disambiguation for 'brackets'. And yes nohat, I just realized wordiq is only a copy of the wikipedia entry. Again... – VonC Aug 08 '10 at 14:11
5

I say curly brace, because where I went through school, brackets ALWAYS meant "()", while we had square braces: "[]", angle braces or less/bigger than: "<>", and curly braces: "{}". That was just the most common usage, some people called "()" either braces or brackets, so the important thing was the qualifier on the type of brace for anything other than "()". – Vincent McNabb Aug 08 '10 at 23:29
2

I always took "brackets" to mean "{}", "square brackets" to mean "[]", and "parentheses" to mean "()". "Braces" are what I had on my teeth. (Now that I interact with programmers more, I accept "curly braces" and "curly brackets" as a means of disambiguation.) – mmyers Aug 12 '10 at 22:22

score 44 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 30 '10 at 15:24

44

I always thought { was officially a brace.

[ is a bracket

( is a parenthesis

With "bracket" also referring to any one of the three.

answered Aug 30 '10 at 15:24

Seamus

2,787

2

This is the terminology that I have always used (in Australia). Further to this, I tend to refer to the angle brackets, < >, as chevrons but I have come across some people who do not understand that term. – dave Dec 13 '10 at 00:38
3

I thought chevrons were ⟪ ⟫ – mplungjan Mar 09 '11 at 12:52
1

As a fellow Australian, that's the definitions that I was taught; however in a programming or more everyday context it might cause confusion. As has been mentioned in another answer, 'curly bracket' is accepted, if not 'correct'. – Richard A May 09 '11 at 23:58

Tolerance72 · Answer 3 · 2012-07-06T16:36:10.500

26

The Chicago Manual of Style refers to them as "braces".

6.102 "Braces, {}, often called curly brackets, provide yet another option for enclosing data and are used in various ways in certain programming languages. They are also used in mathematical and other specialized writing (see, e.g., 12.28). They are not interchangeable with parentheses or brackets. See the example phrases throughout chapter 5 for one possible use of braces." http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch06/ch06_sec102.html

12.28 Set notation Braces are used to delimit the elements of a set, and other delimiters should not be substituted. For example, {a₁,a₂,...a_n} http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch12/ch12_sec028.html

You will find this use of the word "brace" to be supported by dictionary definitions.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brace?show=1&t=1341592270 http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/brace http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/brace

edited Jul 06 '12 at 16:36

answered Jul 06 '12 at 16:26

Tolerance72

1,508

5

This is the one answer I'm upvoting, because it has the virtue of being fairly authoritative (which IMHO is what was meant by "professional name"). However, I can't imagine a context where I'd call them that, as the vast majority of my readers/listeners would be uncertian which glyphs I'm talking about exactly. – T.E.D. Jul 06 '12 at 16:48
Thanks for the upvote T.E.D. As a programmer, I call them "squirrelly brackets" because it's fun, and everyone knows what I am talking about. However, yes, I was looking for the "most professional" name for the marks. – Tolerance72 Jul 06 '12 at 16:57
2

@Torrence: If you're looking for more fun names, I had a grade school teacher who playfully called them "Alfred Hitchcocks" because of their resemblance to the profile of the famous director's face. But, no, that's hardly the "most professional" term. – J.R. Jul 07 '12 at 23:10
@J.R. I love it. – Tolerance72 Jul 09 '12 at 13:13

score 25 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 21 '11 at 20:07

25

I think curly brackets is the most professional name. See Wikipedia for more details.

edited Sep 21 '11 at 20:07

Daniel

57,547

answered Aug 08 '10 at 13:47

chanchal1987

1,866

yes, from the wiki page, I agree: "Therefore, when it is necessary to avoid any possibility of confusion, such as in computer programming, it may be best to use the term curly bracket rather than brace." – Edward Tanguay Aug 08 '10 at 17:04
22

@Edward: just so you know, the "most professional name" remains "braces". In case that matter. "Curly bracket" is very uncommon in programming books. – VonC Aug 08 '10 at 17:29
12

I agree. In British English, "curly brackets" is the most technically correct name. "Braces" may or may not even be understood! – Noldorin Aug 30 '10 at 13:20
13

I use "curly braces" for my american english programming needs – Claudiu Oct 13 '10 at 14:09
21

To add another American perspective: {} are braces, [] are brackets, () are parentheses, <> are less-than and greater-than (or angle brackets, if you must), and «» are chevrons. – skst Oct 19 '11 at 13:31
1

To add a slight correction to @skst, ⟨ ⟩ are angle brackets, and < > are less-than and greater-than signs. – Peter Shor Nov 03 '11 at 12:53
2

@PeterShor, I did say those are less-than and greater-than signs. I added the "angle bracket" parenthetical because that's what many developers call them, especially given their additional purpose in programming languages (that of bracketing something). The symbols you entered as angle brackets don't display in Chrome or Notepad++; they do display in Firefox and Visual Studio. However, they're not valid syntax in any programming language I'm familiar with, so I doubt many developers would confuse them for "angle brackets." – skst Nov 04 '11 at 15:04
skst's list is what I've always understood to be the correct terms. "angle brackets" seems to be a fairly recent invention, I presume since the advent of HTML and XML. I have sometimes heard people use "curly braces" or "curly brackets" for braces, and "square brackets" for brackets, for added clarification. – Jay Nov 16 '11 at 18:23
I say "curly braces", "square braces" or "square brackets" and of course "parentheses". I have not normally used "angle brackets", but I might pick that one up because it's easier to say, and more meaningful in that context than "lt,gt" – TecBrat Jun 22 '12 at 12:49
1

Curly brackets is the term used in linguistics for one particular usage of '{ }'; this contrasts with square brackets '[ ]'. In fact, "Curly Bracketts" was a pseudonym used for some satirical fake linguistic papers. – John Lawler Jul 07 '12 at 17:41
7

Unicode calls the symbol "LEFT CURLY BRACKET" – nielsbot Jul 10 '12 at 15:44
For what it's worth, TeX distinguishes (but many novice TeXers incorrectly don't) between the less-than greater-than signs <> and the angle brackets \langle\rangle. – LSpice Jun 23 '16 at 19:23

score 17 · Answer 5 · edited May 11 '15 at 13:34

17

I don't know if this counts as the most professional name, but the Unicode standard refers to them as

LEFT CURLY BRACKET (was previously OPENING CURLY BRACKET)

and

RIGHT CURLY BRACKET (was previously CLOSING CURLY BRACKET)

from C0 Controls and Basic Latin: LEFT CURLY BRACKET = opening curly bracket (1.0) = left brace

edited May 11 '15 at 13:34

Dragon

161

answered Aug 09 '10 at 04:52

2

A reference link would be helpful. – Tolerance72 Jul 09 '12 at 13:13

score 7 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 28 '12 at 10:19

7

Technically: “[]” are called brackets, “()” are called parentheses and “{}” are called braces. But in the real world these terms are used interchangeably so, to avoid confusion, be sure to make it 100% clear that you mean “{}”.

answered Feb 28 '12 at 10:19

Pitarou

13,861

immutabl · Answer 7 · 2012-02-28T10:10:35.953

5

In my line of work (software development) we call them curly brackets or braces. These seem fairly canonical:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/Braces

edited Feb 28 '12 at 10:10

answered Feb 28 '12 at 10:03

immutabl

3,119

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 10 '12 at 15:43

3

The unicode standard uses "LEFT CURLY BRACKET" to describe this symbol: http://www.decodeunicode.org/u+007B

answered Jul 10 '12 at 15:43

nielsbot

333

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 12 '12 at 19:14

2

I've always called them gullwings as this is clearly the coolest name for them. Curly brackets is probably the best if you want people to know what you're talking about.

answered Jul 12 '12 at 19:14

JamesHH

537

The symbols « and », mentioned above, are called guillemets, and function as quotation marks in some languages. See the Wikipedia article on "guillemets" for more information. – tautophile Jun 08 '18 at 16:01

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 09 '12 at 15:32

1

If it's a java course then they are braces. See for example http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/html/CodeConventions.doc6.html

answered Jul 09 '12 at 15:32

Wudang

2,766

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Jul 12 '12 at 19:35

1

You have a lot of comments about brackets and braces, but I think your question was seeking confirmation of "curly". Will Macmillan dictionary do?

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/curly-brackets

answered Jul 12 '12 at 19:35

talkaboutquality

273

That link does little for the "more professional name" part of the question, because it labels curly brackets as informal. – James Waldby - jwpat7 Jul 13 '12 at 04:12

What is the most professional name for "squiggly bracket"?

11 Answers11

Linked