What 𝑙 means
Usually a variable; the formula defines what it stands for.
𝑙 is the lowercase Latin l in a mathematical italic style, one of the letter styles used in formulas. Italic commonly marks variables and helps distinguish mathematical symbols from ordinary text and other math alphabets.
Letter notation evolved over centuries. Leonardo of Pisa's 1202 arithmetic book Liber abaci used small letters for given quantities. In 1591, François Viète used vowels for unknown values and consonants for known ones in algebra. Euler used lowercase l for the natural logarithm in 1748. These are period conventions; they do not give 𝑙 a fixed meaning today.
How do I type 𝑙 in Word?
In Microsoft Word, type 1D459 and press Alt+X. Microsoft's 2026 Word instructions say to select only those digits first if adjacent text is hexadecimal.
Text cleanup called NFKC or NFKD compatibility normalization can fold mathematical letters back to plain Latin forms, erasing distinctions. Avoid those forms for formulas when the styled alphabet carries meaning.
Unicode's 2026 math guidance notes that a browser without the needed mathematical font may fail to display this character or show a different-looking glyph.
Technical and context-defined; the italic form identifies a math alphabet, not a fixed value.
Compatibility normalization can turn it into plain l.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
1
More like this
11
How to type or find 𝑙
- Search it as
- math italic l · italic l · fancy l
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𝑙\1D4591D459, then press Alt+X. Select only those digits first if adjacent text contains other hexadecimal characters.Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.