`
Grave Accent (Backtick)
- Unicode
- U+0060
- Category
- Punctuation
- HTML Entity
- `
- CSS
- \0060
The grave accent (`), known in computing as the backtick or backquote, is a short stroke slanting down to the right. ASCII added it as a spacing copy of the accent in words such as è and à; on its own it has no role in English writing and is easily confused with the apostrophe ' or the opening quote ‘. Its main use today is technical: marking code in chats, documentation and Markdown.
On US and UK Windows keyboards ` has its own key left of 1, below Esc; on US keyboards Shift with it gives ~. On the US-International layout and most European layouts it is a dead key: press it, then Space. On a Mac with the US layout it is the key left of 1; British Mac keyboards put it left of Z. On Android it is on the =\< page; on iPhone hold the apostrophe key on the 123 page and pick ` if your keyboard offers it, or copy it from here.
On US and UK Windows keyboards ` has its own key left of 1, below Esc; on US keyboards Shift with it gives ~. On the US-International layout and most European layouts it is a dead key: press it, then Space. On a Mac with the US layout it is the key left of 1; British Mac keyboards put it left of Z. On Android it is on the =\< page; on iPhone hold the apostrophe key on the 123 page and pick ` if your keyboard offers it, or copy it from here.
How to Type
- Windows
- ` key (left of 1) · Alt+96
- macOS
- ` key (left of 1, US layout)
- Linux
- ` key · Ctrl+Shift+U 60
- HTML
- `
In Programming
In Markdown, Slack, Discord and GitHub single backticks mark inline code and three (```) fence a code block. JavaScript template literals are wrapped in backticks (`Hello ${name}`), and Go uses them for raw strings. MySQL quotes identifiers with them (`order`), Bash runs `command` as the older form of $(command), and in PowerShell the backtick is the escape and line-continuation character.
Tags
backtick
back quote
grave accent
backtick key
alt 96
markdown code
keyboard symbol
punctuation
ascii