What ␅ means
It asks the receiving system for a reply.
Before ASCII became a standard computer text code, teleprinters—machines that sent messages over a line—used an enquiry character in the older ITA2 code. WRU means “Who Are You?” In 1978, DEC’s VT100, a screen-and-keyboard device, used ENQ for an answerback: a short identifying message.
Is ␅ the control character itself?
No: ␅ is a readable picture of ENQ. Unicode leaves control pictures’ exact drawings open, so fonts may draw ␅ differently.
Technical notation for protocol notes and terminal manuals.
The printed glyph does not send ENQ.
Part of the collection
Related characters
2
Questions people ask
1Can fonts draw ␅ differently?
Yes. Unicode leaves the exact design open.
More like this
8
How to type or find ␅
- Also called
- ENQ · enquiry character
- Search it as
- wru · answerback · teleprinter
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Windows (Word)
Windows
HTML
␅CSS
\2405Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
␅
HTML hex
␅
CSS content
content: "\2405";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%90%85
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.