(
Left Parenthesis
- Unicode
- U+0028
- Category
- Punctuation
- HTML Entity
- (
- CSS
- \0028
The left (opening) parenthesis, a round bracket in British English, starts an aside that the sentence could do without (like this one) and always pairs with the closing ). In mathematics parentheses group what is calculated first: 2 × (3 + 4) = 14. They also enclose list numbers, an abbreviation after the full name and the year of a citation. Note the naming split: in British usage "brackets" alone usually means these round ones, in American usage the square [ ].
On US and UK keyboards ( is Shift+9. On iPhone it is on the 123 page; on Android on the ?123 page.
On US and UK keyboards ( is Shift+9. On iPhone it is on the 123 page; on Android on the ?123 page.
How to Type
- Windows
- Shift+9 · Alt+40
- macOS
- Shift+9
- Linux
- Shift+9 · Ctrl+Shift+U 28
- HTML
- (
In Programming
Parentheses call functions and declare their parameters (print(x)), group expressions to override operator precedence, and wrap the conditions of if and while in C-family languages. In Python () is an empty tuple. In regular expressions ( opens a capture group; in Bash $( … ) substitutes a command's output and ( … ) runs commands in a subshell. An unmatched parenthesis is one of the most common syntax errors.
Tags
left parenthesis
opening parenthesis
round bracket
open bracket
parentheses
alt 40
shift 9
keyboard symbol
ascii