---
name: Pilcrow
slug: pilcrow
category: typography
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: The paragraph mark, a reversed P with a doubled stem, used to show
  where a paragraph begins or as a hover anchor beside a heading.
aliases:
  - name: paragraph mark
  - name: paragraph symbol
  - name: paraph
  - name: blind P
tags:
  - editorial
  - icons
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - first-line-indent
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso:
    - rich-text-editor
implementations: []
sources:
  - title: Pilcrow (Wikipedia)
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilcrow
  - title: Practical Typography (Matthew Butterick)
    url: https://practicaltypography.com/
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: naming the paragraph symbol in an editor
---

The pilcrow is the [glyph](/glyph) at U+00B6, a P turned into a marker: the bowl filled
in, the stem doubled, the whole thing usually drawn heavier than the text around it. Its
oldest job is the one its shape still says out loud. Medieval manuscripts ran as
unbroken blocks of text, and a rubricator went through afterwards in red ink marking
where each new argument started. The mark was a capital C for `capitulum`, a little
chapter, which drifted over centuries of copying into the shape we have now. The name
travelled the same road, from `paragraphos` through Old French to `pylcrafte` and then
`pilcrow`. Scribes left a gap in the text for the rubricator to fill, and when the red
ink stopped arriving the gap stayed behind: that abandoned space is where the paragraph
indent comes from.

That history is the reason the pilcrow and the indent are alternatives rather than
partners. Both mark the same event, the start of a new paragraph, and both come from the
same red mark; the indent is literally the hole the mark used to sit in. Setting a
paragraph with a [first line indent](/first-line-indent) and a visible pilcrow says the
same thing twice, which is why continuous prose with pilcrows in it, the way a legal
citation or a Bible sets verses run together, drops the indent entirely and lets the mark
do all the work.

Interfaces use it in two other ways. Word processors and editors show it as a formatting
mark: turn marks on and a pilcrow appears at every paragraph break, a dot in every space,
an arrow at every tab, so a writer can see the structure the characters have rather than
the shape they happen to make. It is the fastest way to answer "why will this line not
move", and the marks are drawn without moving the text they annotate, which is what the
specimen on this page reproduces. The second use is the web's: a pilcrow that appears
beside a heading on hover, linking to that section. It reads as the paragraph symbol, but
strictly it is an anchor pointing at the block, which is why the section sign (U+00A7) and
a plain link icon turn up in the same slot on other sites.

Say the name out loud when you mean the character, because the alternatives are all
worse. "Paragraph symbol" gets confused with the indent, "reverse P" describes half of
it, and the thing has been called a paraph, a blind P, and an alinea depending on who is
speaking. In a design system the pilcrow is normally an icon rather than a typed
character anyway, since it has to hold its weight at 12 pixels beside a heading, and the
letterform in most text faces does not.