Slash (punctuation)

A slash (/) is a punctuation mark used for various purposes. Other names for it are a stroke, virgule, diagonal, right-leaning stroke, oblique dash, solidus, slant, slake and whack, or forward slash. A mark in the reverse direction (\) is called a reverse slash or backslash. 

One use is showing how much of something is left. For example, "15/20 boxes remaining" means that there are 15 boxes remaining out of a total 20 boxes.     

The slash (/) is also known as: forward slash, stroke, oblique. A slash is often used to indicate "or": Dear Sir/Madam (Sir or Madam)     

It is also used in mathematics and coding, commonly to indicate numerical division. It is also used to delineate members of a hierarchical path to locate a file or resource.  Note that some computer systems use the backslash for the same purpose.

Related pages
 Hyphen
 Quotation mark
 Dash

Category:Punctuation