SYM·0088 · Signum sectionis
Section
the glyph that means law
- Unicode
- U+00A7 section sign
- Meaning
- A numbered division of a text — and, in much of Europe, a statute.
- History
- Two S-forms overlaid, generally explained as a ligature of signum sectionis. Its career is narrower than the pilcrow’s and far more powerful: in German-speaking legal culture the character is the ordinary way to cite law, and Paragraph names the symbol itself.
- Variants
- Overlap tighter or looser by typeface; doubled §§ for a range of sections.
- Related
- ¶ Pilcrow; ℞ another abbreviation that became an institution.
- Appears
- Statutes, contracts, academic citation, and the signage of every law faculty.
- Evolution
- Scribal division mark → citation convention → a metonym for the law itself.
Sources · 3
- documented German legal citation practice, in which § is the standard reference mark for a statutory provision.
- documented The Unicode Standard, U+00A7 SECTION SIGN.
- traditional The derivation from signum sectionis. Given in most accounts, and rarely with a source attached.