The check or check mark (
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...
), checkmark (
Philippine English
Philippine English is a variety of English native to the Philippines, including those used by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos and English learners in the Philippines from adjacent Asian countries. English is taught ...
), tickmark (
Indian English
Indian English (IndE, IE) or English (India) is a group of English dialects spoken in the Republic of India and among the Indian diaspora and native to India. English is used by the Government of India for communication, and is enshrined ...
) or tick (
Australian
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal Aus ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
and
British English
British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...
) is a mark (✓, ✔, etc.) used in many countries, including the English-speaking world, to indicate the concept "yes" (e.g. "yes; this has been verified", "yes; that is the correct answer", "yes; this has been completed", or "yes; this
tem or optionapplies").
The
X mark
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 ...
is also sometimes used for this purpose (most notably on election
ballot papers, e.g. in the United Kingdom), but otherwise usually indicates "no", incorrectness, or failure. One of the earliest usages of a check mark as an indication of completion is on ancient Babylonian tablets "where small indentations were sometimes made with a stylus, usually placed at the left of a worker's name, presumably to indicate whether the listed ration has been issued."
As a verb, to check (off) means to add such a mark. Printed forms, printed documents, and computer software (see
checkbox
A checkbox (check box, tickbox, tick box) is a graphical widget that allows the user to make a binary choice, i.e. a choice between one of two possible mutually exclusive options. For example, the user may have to answer 'yes' (checked) or 'n ...
) commonly include squares in which to place check marks.
International differences
The check mark is a predominant affirmative symbol of convenience in the English-speaking world because of its instant and simple composition. In other language communities, there may be different conventions.
It is common in Swedish schools for a to indicate that an answer is incorrect, while "R", from the Swedish , i.e., "correct", is used to indicate that an answer is correct.
In Finnish, ✓ stands for , i.e., "wrong", due to its similarity to a slanted v. The opposite, "correct", is marked with
, a slanted vertical line emphasized with two dots (see also
commercial minus sign
The commercial minus sign is a typographical and mathematical symbol used in commercial and financial documents in some European languages, in specific contexts.
In some commercial and financial documents, especially in Germany and Scandinavia ...
).
In Japan, the
O mark is used instead of the check mark, and the X or ✓ mark are commonly used for wrong.
In the Netherlands (and former Dutch colonies) the
flourish of approval
A flourish of approval or ''krul'' ("curl") is a mostly Dutch symbol used for grading schoolwork or to show that one has seen and agreed with a paragraph. The ''krul'' first appeared in the early 19th century together with the rising bureaucracy in ...
(or ''krul'') is used for approving a section or sum.
In
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
-speaking countries, ✓ is used for “correct” or “done”, but not usually for ticking boxes, which are crossed instead. The opposite of ✓ is ƒ (short for ''falsch'' “wrong”).
Unicode
Unicode
Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
provides various check marks, the one called is in the
Dingbats block:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
See also
*
*
*
*
References
External links
Unicode Character U+2713 Check Markat Compart.com
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Pictograms
Symbols
Typographical symbols