That key left of '1' on many keyboards is actually crucial for programmers

The humble tilde has many uses.

By Lawrence Bonk Nov. 14, 2026 2:30 pm EST Unsplash/Clay Banks Add Engadget on Google: Google Discover

The humble tilde (~) symbol, which is located left of the "1" key, has a few notable uses. It can represent approximations, which is useful in mathematics and statistics, and is found as an accent over letters in languages like Spanish and Portuguese. You've probably spent some time hunting for it on a keyboard when spelling stuff like "mañana." However, its primary use on a computer keyboard is as a tool in programming languages C, C++ and Java, among many others.