What ‘ means
It marks where a single quotation begins. British publishing commonly puts single quotes around the main quotation and double quotes around a quotation inside it; American style usually reverses that order. Follow your publication’s style guide.
Where did curly quotes come from?
They evolved from margin marks flagging quoted or notable passages. The quotation-mark family appears in print by 1516 and in England by 1521. These dates concern ancestors, not necessarily this exact shape; paired opening and closing marks developed later.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why did my apostrophe become ‘?
Smart-quote software can misread the context. Correct the mark manually or disable automatic substitution.
How to type ‘
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 2018, then Alt+X to get ‘.
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 “left single quotation mark”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 2018, then Enter or Space.
HTML
‘CSS
\2018Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
‘
HTML hex
‘
CSS content
content: "\2018";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%80%98
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.