angle symbol

The angle symbol is a mathematical symbol that is placed ahead of character s, usually uppercase italic letters representing spatial points, to describe a geometric angle formed by the intersection of two lines, line segments, or rays. The symbol looks like a skewed, uppercase, sans serif letter L ( ).

The illustration shows an example of the use of the angle symbol (along with some other mathematical symbols) in a geometric scenario. The statement at the bottom translates to, "Lines L and M are parallel if and only if angle ABC is congruent to angle DEF ."

When two angles are congruent, they have equal measure, so an equals sign (=) is sometimes used in place of the congruence symbol. Thus we can say that in this example, ABC = DEF .

Also see the Table of Mathematical Symbols .