To achieve an accented letter, the typist first typed the desired diacritic, then typed the letter to be accented. On typewriters designed for languages that routinely use diacritics (accent marks), a dead key mechanism was provided: a mark is made when a dead key is typed but, unlike normal keys, the paper carriage does not move on. This symbol did not exist independently as a type or hot-lead printing character. The incorporation of the tilde into ASCII is a direct result of its appearance as a distinct character on Portuguese mechanical typewriters in the late nineteenth century. In lexicography, the latter kind of tilde and the swung dash, ⁓, are used in dictionaries to indicate the omission of the entry word. These are encoded in Unicode with many precomposed characters as well as individually at U+0303 ◌̃ COMBINING TILDE and U+007E ~ TILDE (as a spacing character), and there are additional similar characters for different roles. The tilde has since been applied to a number of other uses as a diacritic mark or a character in its own right. Medieval European charters written in Latin are largely made up of such abbreviated words with suspension marks and other abbreviations only uncommon words were given in full. This saved on the expense of the scribe's labour and the cost of vellum and ink. Such a mark could denote the omission of one letter or several letters. Thus, the commonly used words Anno Domini were frequently abbreviated to A o Dñi, with an elevated terminal with a suspension mark placed over the 'n'. The tilde was originally written over an omitted letter or several letters as a scribal abbreviation, or 'mark of suspension' and 'mark of contraction', shown as a straight line when used with capitals. 4.3.3.1 Unicode and Shift JIS encoding of wave dash.In lexicography, the latter kind of tilde and the swung dash (⁓) are used in dictionaries to indicate the omission of the entry word. These are encoded in Unicode at and, and there are additional similar characters for different roles. Thus the commonly used words Anno Domini were frequently abbreviated to A o Dñi, an elevated terminal with a suspension mark placed over the 'n'. The reason for the name was that it was originally written over a letter as a scribal abbreviation, as a 'mark of suspension', shown as a straight line when used with capitals.

E with tilde in ipa