What e means
The letter e alone doesn't reveal the sender's intent. Don't automatically expand an e reply into an abbreviation or decide it's a joke. If you expected an answer, “Did you mean to send just e?” lets the sender explain.
Why does e look different in different fonts?
Your font draws the e; the character stays the same. Its width and opening vary. A rounded e may dip slightly below the baseline—the imaginary line letters sit on—to look level with its neighbours. That isn't a typing mistake.
Don't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
1Why does e show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type e
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 0065, then Alt+X to get e.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “latin small letter e”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 0065, then Enter or Space.
HTML
eCSS
\0065Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
e
HTML hex
e
CSS content
content: "\0065";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
e
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
1
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.