≹ Neither Greater-Than Nor Less-Than Symbol (U+2279)
The ≹ (Neither Greater-Than Nor Less-Than) symbol is a mathematical operator used to indicate that one value is not greater than and not less than another. In everyday arithmetic with real numbers, this simply means the two numbers are exactly equal. In advanced mathematics, particularly when working with partially ordered sets or complex numbers, the symbol shows that two elements are entirely incomparable.
This specialized character belongs to the Mathematical Operators block and lives at the Unicode code point U+2279. It was officially added to the Unicode Standard in version 1.1 back in 1993. Visually, it features a greater-than sign stacked on top of a less-than sign, with a forward slash striking through both to negate their meaning.
You will mostly spot ≹ in academic papers, logic puzzles, and high-level math textbooks. Mathematicians use it when discussing the law of trichotomy—a principle stating that for any two real numbers, they must either be greater than, less than, or equal to one another. When the first two options are eliminated, only equality remains. Computer scientists and programmers might reference the logic behind this symbol when writing comparison algorithms, though in actual code, developers rely on standard programming syntax (like `!(a > b || a < b)`) rather than the symbol itself. Outside of academics, social media users occasionally repurpose the character in text art or niche memes due to its complicated, striking appearance.
Typing the ≹ symbol requires a few different methods depending on your device. On a Windows PC, you can use the Alt code shortcut by holding the Alt key and typing 8825 on your numeric keypad. Mac users can press Control + Command + Space to bring up the Character Viewer and search for "neither greater". If you are building a website, you can display the character using the HTML entity ≹ or ≹. For most everyday users, simply copying and pasting the symbol directly from a reference page is the fastest and easiest method.
The ≹ symbol shares its mathematical neighborhood with several related characters. Its closest sibling is ≸ (Neither Less-Than Nor Greater-Than), which holds the exact same mathematical meaning but visually places the less-than sign on top. You might also encounter the un-negated version, ≷ (Greater-Than Or Less-Than), which omits the slash entirely. While these symbols represent complex logical concepts, they ultimately boil down to defining the relationships and boundaries between different values.