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The iconic dollar sign, $, looks the way it does—a letter S with one or two vertical lines through it—because of the Spanish Peso. Let’s understand how.
Peso was often abbreviated as PS. As people wrote this quickly, P and S started to overlap over time, and the curved S shape with part of the P’s vertical stroke started looking like $.
In the late 1700s, the US used Pesos in daily trade. When the US adopted the dollar sign in 1785, it kept the symbol that came from the Spanish American figure for pesos.
Initially, the dollar sign had two vertical strokes on the letter S, representing the P’s vertical lines. However, with simplification over time, a single line (stroke) became the norm.
Some lesser accepted theories suggest that the symbol started as a U on top of an S (for US, United States). However, the $ sign existed before the US dollar, so this one’s mostly a myth.
As some believe that the dollar sign comes from U over S as shorthand for the United States, it is believed that the bottom of the U disappeared over time, leaving S with two lines.
This depicts the Spanish influence on global trade in the 18th century, as even early American coins and notes had the ‘Spanish milled dollar’ reference.
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