Pilcrow

In the field of publishing, the pilcrow (¶) is a handwritten and a typographical glyph (visual character) used to identify a paragraph. In editorial production the pilcrow typographic character also is known as the paragraph mark, the paragraph sign, the paragraph symbol, the paraph, and the blind P.^[1]

In writing and in editorial practise, authors and editors use the pilcrow glyph to indicate the start of separate paragraphs, and to identify a new paragraph within a long block of text without paragraph indentions, as in the book An Essay on Typography (1931), by Eric Gill.^[2] In the Middle Ages, the practise of rubrication (type in red-ink) used a red pilcrow to indicate the beginning of a different train of thought within the author's narrative without paragraphs.^[3]

The typographic character of the pilcrow usually is drawn like a lowercase letter-q, reaching from the descender to the ascender height; the bowl (loop) can be filled or empty. Moreover, the pilcrow can also be drawn with the bowl extended downward, to resemble a reversed letter-D.