Squiggly Line Symbol (~): Tilde Meaning and How to Type It on Any Device

The squiggly line symbol (~) is officially called the tilde, and it means something different almost everywhere it appears. In a text message it means "roughly" (~5 minutes). In a statistics paper it means "is distributed as." In a Unix terminal it means "my home directory." Over a Spanish n it turns "ano" into "año." And the red squiggly line under a word in Word or Google Docs is not a character at all, but a warning from the spell checker.

This guide covers all of those meanings, the three different Unicode tildes you might run into, and how to type the symbol on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, in HTML, Word, Google Docs, and LaTeX, where a bare tilde is a famous beginner trap.

Tilde Copy and Paste

If you just need the symbol right now, copy it from here:

1~
2≈
3∼
4ñ ã õ
Copy

The first line is the ASCII TILDE, Unicode U+007E, the one you want for file paths, URLs, and code. The second is ALMOST EQUAL TO (U+2248), the proper "approximately" sign for math. The third is the TILDE OPERATOR (U+223C), the relation used in statistics and geometry.

What Is the Squiggly Line Called?

The character has several names, and people search for all of them:

• Tilde is the official name, borrowed from Spanish, where it originally meant any small mark written over a letter.
• Squiggly line, squiggle line, or just squiggle is what most people call it when they do not know the official name.
• Twiddle is a nickname common among programmers.
• Wavy dash or swung dash describes the longer, dash-like version used in dictionaries and in Japanese typography.

Three Different Tildes in Unicode

Part of the confusion around this symbol is that Unicode defines several characters that look nearly identical. Three of them matter in everyday use:

If you copy a tilde from a web page and a file path or command stops working, you have probably picked up the SMALL TILDE (U+02DC) instead of the ASCII one. Shells, URLs, and programming languages only recognize U+007E.

What Does ~ Mean?

Approximately (informal)

In casual writing, a tilde before a number means "about" or "roughly": ~5 minutes, ~200 people, ~$40. This is widely understood in email, chat, and notes, but it is informal. In mathematics, science, and formal documents, use the ALMOST EQUAL TO sign ≈ (U+2248) instead: π ≈ 3.14159.

Negation in logic

In older logic notation, ~p means "not p." Most modern textbooks use ¬p (NOT SIGN, U+00AC) instead, but the tilde still appears in philosophy texts and some computer science courses.

"Is distributed as" in statistics

The expression X ~ N(0, 1) reads "X is distributed as a standard normal." The symbol here is the TILDE OPERATOR (U+223C), typed as \sim in LaTeX. The same relation means "is asymptotically equivalent to" in analysis: f(n) ~ n² means the ratio of the two sides tends to 1.

Similarity in geometry

In geometry, △ABC ∼ △DEF means the triangles are similar (same shape, possibly different size). Congruence (same shape and size) uses ≅ (U+2245).

Home directory in Unix shells

In bash, zsh, and other Unix shells, a leading tilde expands to your home directory. ~/Documents means /home/yourname/Documents on Linux or /Users/yourname/Documents on macOS.

URLs and paths

Older web servers served personal pages from paths such as http://example.com/~username/, a convention borrowed from Unix home directories.

The tilde family in math

The TILDE OPERATOR has several cousins, each with its own meaning:

The Tilde as an Accent: ñ, ã, õ

In Spanish, the tilde over the n creates a separate letter, ñ (eñe), pronounced like the "ny" in "canyon." It began in medieval manuscripts as shorthand for a doubled n: "anno" was written as "año." In Portuguese, ã and õ mark nasal vowels, as in "São Paulo" and "coração." These letters exist as single precomposed characters (ñ is U+00F1, ã is U+00E3, õ is U+00F5), so you rarely need the combining tilde to type them.

The Red and Blue Squiggly Line Under Words

Many searches for "squiggly line" are not about the ~ character at all. They are about the wavy underline that editors draw beneath text:

• Microsoft Word: a red squiggle marks a possible spelling error; a blue double underline marks a grammar or style suggestion. Right-click the word to see suggestions.
• Google Docs: red means spelling, blue means grammar. Right-click for the suggestion, or adjust checks under Tools > Spelling and grammar.
• Code editors (VS Code and others): red squiggles mark errors reported by the compiler or linter, yellow or orange ones mark warnings. Hover the squiggle to read the message.

How to Type the Tilde on Windows

Keyboard (US layout): Hold Shift and press the ` key directly to the left of 1. On a UK layout, the tilde is Shift + #, the key to the right of the apostrophe.

Alt code for ~: Hold Alt and type 126 on the numeric keypad, then release. Num Lock must be on.

Alt code for ≈: Hold Alt and type 247 on the numeric keypad. This uses the legacy US code page, so it works in most programs but not every one. Note that Alt + 0247 (with the leading zero) gives ÷ instead.

How to Type the Tilde on Mac

Standalone ASCII tilde: Hold Shift and press the ` key, left of 1 on a US keyboard. This gives U+007E, the one you need for Terminal and file paths.

Accent tilde: Press Option + N and then a letter: Option + N, then n gives ñ; Option + N, then a gives ã; Option + N, then o gives õ. If you press Option + N and then the spacebar, you get the SMALL TILDE ˜ (U+02DC), not the ASCII one, so avoid that route for paths and code.

How to Type the Tilde on iPhone and Android

iPhone and iPad: Tap 123, then #+=. The tilde is on that third keyboard layer. For ñ, press and hold the n key on the letter keyboard and slide to ñ; the same works for ã and õ.

Android (Gboard): Tap ?123, then =\< for the second symbols page, where ~ lives. For ñ, ã, and õ, press and hold the base letter.

Tilde in HTML and Unicode

A common mistake is writing ˜ expecting the keyboard tilde. That entity produces the SMALL TILDE (U+02DC). For a plain ~ in HTML, just type the character or use ~.

Tilde in Word and Google Docs

Microsoft Word: Type the tilde directly from the keyboard, or type 007E and press Alt + X to convert the hex code into ~. The same trick gives the math symbols: 2248 then Alt + X produces ≈, and 223C then Alt + X produces ∼. For accented letters, press Ctrl + Shift + ~, release, then type the letter: n becomes ñ.

Google Docs: Type ~ from the keyboard. For ≈ or ∼, go to Insert > Special characters and search for "almost equal" or "tilde operator."

Tilde in LaTeX

This is where most people get caught. In LaTeX source, a bare ~ is not a tilde. It is a non-breaking space, used to keep things like Figure~3 or Dr.~Smith together on one line. If you type ~ expecting a squiggly line in the output, you get a space instead.

Here are the correct forms:

1% Non-breaking space (what a bare ~ actually does)
2See Figure~3 and Table~2.
3
4% Literal tilde in text
5Visit \textasciitilde{}username on the server.
6Or: ~{}username
7
8% Approximately and similar-to in math mode
9$\pi \approx 3.14$
10$X \sim N(0, 1)$
11$\triangle ABC \sim \triangle DEF$
12$f(x) \simeq g(x)$, $A \cong B$
13
14% Tilde as an accent over a math symbol
15$\tilde{x}$          % narrow tilde over one symbol
16$\widetilde{xy}$     % wide tilde over a group
17
18% Accented letters in text
19Espa~na, S~ao Paulo
Copy

With modern LaTeX you can also type ñ, ã, and õ directly in the source instead of writing \~n.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the squiggly line symbol called?

It is the tilde (~). Informal names include squiggle, squiggly line, twiddle, and wavy dash.

What does ~ mean before a number?

It means "approximately" or "about": ~10 minutes means roughly 10 minutes. In formal math, use ≈ instead.

How do I type the tilde on a keyboard?

Windows and Mac (US layout): Shift + the ` key to the left of 1. Windows alt code: Alt + 126.

What is the tilde in LaTeX?

A bare ~ is a non-breaking space. Use \textasciitilde for a printed tilde in text, \sim for ∼ and \approx for ≈ in math mode, and \~n or a direct ñ for the accented letter.

Why is there a red squiggly line under my word?

Your editor's spell checker thinks the word is misspelled. Right-click it to see suggestions, add it to the dictionary, or ignore it.

Writing Technical Documents with Symbols

Tildes, approximation signs, and similarity relations show up constantly in statistics write-ups, geometry notes, and anything with a Unix path in it, and getting the right character in the right mode keeps the document compiling and searchable.

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