Angzarr

The angzarr (⍼) is an obscure typographical symbol representing azimuth, dating back to at least the mid 20th century, which became notorious during the first half of the 2020s for its obscurity and lack of a widely recognised meaning (compare ghost characters).

The name is from an abbreviation of its ISO 9573-13 name, "Angle with Down Zig-zag Arrow", also reflected in its Unicode name, "Right Angle with Downwards Zigzag Arrow". Its HTML entity reference, originally defined in ISO 9573-13 for use in SGML, is⍼. It has been included in Unicode since version 3.2.

The symbol ⍼ is found in H. Berthold AG symbol catalogs published around 1941 and 1950 where it is described as a mathematical symbol for "Azimut, Richtungswinkel".

It is also found in a 1963 Monotype typeset catalog of arrow characters; it does not appear in an earlier 1954 edition of the same catalog. Monotype listed the symbol as matrix serial number S9576. A later 1972 Monotype catalog, for mathematical characters, listed it under another serial number, S16139; the reason for the redundant serial number is unclear. It is unknown why Monotype added the character, or what purpose it was intended to serve, although much of Monotype's character repertoire for movable type originated from customer requests, including corporate logos.

In 1988, the International Organization for Standardization added the symbol to its Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) definition, apparently pulling it from the Monotype character set. The STIX Fonts project adopted the Angzarr symbol from the ISO's SGML characters.

In March 2000, the Angzarr symbol reached wide distribution when the Unicode Technical Committee, in collaboration with the STIX project, proposed adding it to ISO/IEC 10646, the ISO standard with which the Unicode Standard is synchronised. The Angzarr was proposed in the ISO working-group document Proposal for Encoding Additional Mathematical Symbols, although no specific purpose is listed for the symbol.

The lack of meaning associated with the Angzarr symbol gained notoriety in 2022 when a blog post was published on its unknown origins. The blog was updated in 2023, confirming the appearance of Angzarr in a 1972 Monotype typeset catalogue with a scan of the page, and in 2024, confirming its appearance in earlier Monotype catalogues.

• List of Unicode characters
• Ghost characters – Erroneous kanji
• Arrow (symbol)