Plus and minus signs
mathematical symbols used to represent the notions of positive and negative as well as the operations of addition and subtraction; mathematical symbols that specify sign of a number
The plus sign (+) and the minus sign (−) are mathematical symbols used to denote positive and negative functions, respectively. In addition, the symbol + represents the operation of addition, which results in a sum, while the symbol − 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.
The forms + and − are used in many countries around the world. Other designs include U+FB29 ﬩ HEBREW LETTER ALTERNATIVE PLUS SIGN for plus and U+2052 ⁒ COMMERCIAL MINUS SIGN for minus.
History
Though the signs now seem as familiar as the alphabet or the Arabic numerals, they are not of great antiquity. The Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for addition, for example, resembles a pair of legs walking in the direction in which the text was written (Egyptian could be written either from right to left or left to right), with the reverse sign indicating subtraction:
Nicole Oresme's manuscripts from the 14th century show what may be one of the earliest uses of + as a sign for plus.
In early 15th century Europe, the letters "P" and "M" were generally used. The symbols (P with overline, p̄, for più (more), i.e., plus, and M with overline, m̄, for meno (less), i.e., minus) appeared for the first time in Luca Pacioli's mathematics compendium, Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità, first printed and published in Venice in 1494.
The public source identifies “Plus and minus signs” as mathematical symbols used to represent the notions of positive and negative as well as the operations of addition and subtraction; mathematical symbols that specify sign of a number. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Plus, minus and signs.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q747083. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2052 and 1494.
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This entry incorporates text from “Plus and minus signs” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.