An X mark (also known as an ex mark or a cross mark or simply an X or ex or a cross) is used to indicate the concept of negation (for example "no, this has not been verified", "no, that is not the correct answer" or "no, I do not agree") as well as an indicator (for example, in election ballot papers or in maps as an x-marks-the-spot). Its opposite is often considered to be the O mark used in Japan and Korea or the check mark used in the West. In Japanese, the X mark (❌) is called "batsu" (ばつ) and can be expressed by someone by crossing their arms.[1]
It is also used as a replacement for a signature for a person who is blind or illiterate and thus cannot write their name.[2] Typically, the writing of an X used for this purpose must be witnessed to be valid.
Contrary to the negation or negative perception delegated to the letter X, there is a significant resilience in the usage displayed by the letter's placement. This unique letter is also recognized as the symbol of multiplicity, the Roman numerical symbol for 10, and also the mark of a forgotten treasure. As a verb, to X (or ex)[3]off/out or to cross off/out means to add such a mark. It is quite common, especially on printed forms and document, for there to be squares in which to place x marks, or interchangeably checks.
It is traditionally used on maps to indicate locations, most famously on treasure maps.[citation needed] It is also used as a set of three to mark jugs of moonshine for having completed all distillation steps, while additionally signifying its potency (as high as 150 proof) relative to legal spirits, which rarely exceed 80 proof (40% ABV).
Among Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries, the X mark was used as a signature to denote presence or approval, particularly regarding agreements and treaties.[4]
In the 21st century, the X mark started to be used to indicate collaborations between fashion brands.[5]
Unicode
Unicode provides various related symbols, including:
Delta is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 4. It was derived from the Phoenician letter dalet 𐤃. Letters that come from delta include Latin D and Cyrillic Д.
First-order logic—also called predicate logic, predicate calculus, quantificational logic—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables over non-logical objects, and allows the use of sentences that contain variables, so that rather than propositions such as "Socrates is a man", one can have expressions in the form "there exists x such that x is Socrates and x is a man", where "there exists" is a quantifier, while x is a variable. This distinguishes it from propositional logic, which does not use quantifiers or relations; in this sense, propositional logic is the foundation of first-order logic.
Q.E.D. or QED is an initialism of the Latin phrase quod erat demonstrandum, meaning "that which was to be demonstrated". Literally it states "what was to be shown". Traditionally, the abbreviation is placed at the end of mathematical proofs and philosophical arguments in print publications, to indicate that the proof or the argument is complete.
A signature is a handwritten depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. The writer of a signature is a signatory or signer. Similar to a handwritten signature, a signature work describes the work as readily identifying its creator. A signature may be confused with an autograph, which is chiefly an artistic signature. This can lead to confusion when people have both an autograph and signature and as such some people in the public eye keep their signatures private whilst fully publishing their autograph.
X, or x, is the twenty-fourth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ex, plural exes.
The ampersand, also known as the and sign, is the logogram &, representing the conjunction "and". It originated as a ligature of the letters of the word et.
A dagger, obelisk, or obelus† is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. The symbol is also used to indicate death or extinction. It is one of the modern descendants of the obelus, a mark used historically by scholars as a critical or highlighting indicator in manuscripts. In older texts, it is called an obelisk.
The slash is the oblique slanting line punctuation mark /. It is also known as a stroke, a solidus, a forward slash and several other historical or technical names. Once used to mark periods and commas, the slash is now used to represent division and fractions, exclusive 'or' and inclusive 'or', and as a date separator.
In mathematics, two sequences of numbers, often experimental data, are proportional or directly proportional if their corresponding elements have a constant ratio. The ratio is called coefficient of proportionality and its reciprocal is known as constant of normalization. Two sequences are inversely proportional if corresponding elements have a constant product, also called the coefficient of proportionality.
Theta is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Phoenician letter Teth . In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 9.
The tilde˜ or ~, is a grapheme with a number of uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin titulus, meaning 'title' or 'superscription'. Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in combination with a base letter. Its freestanding form is used in modern texts mainly to indicate approximation.
A caron is a diacritic mark commonly placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation.
The plus sign and the minus sign are mathematical symbols used to denote positive and negative functions, respectively. In addition, + represents the operation of addition, which results in a sum, while − represents subtraction, resulting in a difference. Their use has been extended to many other meanings, more or less analogous. Plus and minus are Latin terms meaning "more" and "less", respectively.
Hugs and kisses, abbreviated in North America as XO or XOXO, is an informal term used for expressing sincerity, faith, love, or good friendship at the end of a written letter, email or text message.
X is the 24th letter of the English alphabet.
The tau cross is a T-shaped cross, sometimes with all three ends of the cross expanded. It is called a "tau cross" because it is shaped like the Greek letter tau, which in its upper-case form has the same appearance as the Latin letter T.
Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are any collection of number characters and letters in a certain language. Sometimes such characters may be mistaken one for the other.
An overline, overscore, or overbar, is a typographical feature of a horizontal line drawn immediately above the text. In old mathematical notation, an overline was called a vinculum, a notation for grouping symbols which is expressed in modern notation by parentheses, though it persists for symbols under a radical sign. The original use in Ancient Greek was to indicate compositions of Greek letters as Greek numerals. In Latin, it indicates Roman numerals multiplied by a thousand and it forms medieval abbreviations (sigla). Marking one or more words with a continuous line above the characters is sometimes called overstriking, though overstriking generally refers to printing one character on top of an already-printed character.
The ditto mark is a shorthand sign, used mostly in hand-written text, indicating that the words or figures above it are to be repeated.
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