About Apostrophe Apostrophe-quote
Apostrophe Apostrophe-quote is the Unicode character ' at codepoint U+0027 in the Basic Latin block of the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP).
Reference
Unicode 1.0 named this character APOSTROPHE-QUOTE, and the chart still records that name as an alias — a hyphen marking a standards body declining to choose between two jobs. The modern annotations are no tidier: "single quote", "APL quote", a glyph described as neutral, vertical and of mixed usage, and a flat statement that U+2019 is preferred for an actual apostrophe. Every apostrophe most people type is nevertheless this one, because it sits beside the Enter key and the preferred character does not. It carries the Quotation_Mark and Pattern_Syntax properties, is general category Po in Basic Latin since Unicode 1.1, and has exactly one HTML entity — ' — with no semicolon-less form.
Typical uses
- String literals in SQL and most programming languages
- Apostrophes and single quotation marks in plain text and in code comments
- Anywhere a keyboard is the input device and nothing curls it on the way
At a glance
- U+0027, Basic Latin; Unicode 1.1; general category Po
- Unicode 1.0 name: APOSTROPHE-QUOTE. Aliases: single quote, APL quote
- Properties: Quotation_Mark and Pattern_Syntax
- HTML: ' only — no uppercase form and no semicolon-less form
Historical Notes
Origins
The typewriter again: one key for the apostrophe and the single quotation mark, inherited by ASCII and by every keyboard since. The APL quote alias is a third inheritance, from a language that used the character as its own string delimiter.
Unicode
Unicode 1.1, Basic Latin. NamesList.txt still carries the 1.0 name APOSTROPHE-QUOTE, marked as such, alongside the notes that U+2019 is preferred for apostrophe and that U+2018 and U+2019 are the preferred English paired marks. For Hebrew the standard points at U+05F3 GERESH instead.
The entity that arrived late
' is the odd one out in the HTML entity table. Where " has an uppercase form and is valid without its semicolon, ' has neither — a consequence of the name reaching HTML later than the others, and a reason some old parsers do not recognise it.
Developer Notes
| Unicode Codepoint | |
| Decimal | |
| UTF-8 (hex) | |
| UTF-16 (hex) | |
| HEX Entity | |
| HTML Entity | |
| CSS (\xxxx) | |
| JavaScript | |
| Python |
How to Use Apostrophe Apostrophe-quote
To use the Apostrophe Apostrophe-quote symbol (') in HTML, insert the
entity ' directly into your markup. The decimal entity ' works in any HTML-serialised document.
In CSS pseudo-elements use content: '\27';.
In JavaScript and TypeScript the escape '\u0027' evaluates to '. In Python source, write '\u0027'.
The character encodes to 27 as UTF-8 bytes and 0027 as UTF-16 code units. Its decimal codepoint is 39.
This is a text-based Unicode character. It will render in the current font on most platforms. If a font lacks this glyph, the browser may show a placeholder or fall back to a system font.
Things to know
- In SQL and most languages this mark opens and closes a string literal, which is why O'Brien and d'Angelo break more forms than any other punctuation. Escaping means doubling it, so exported data is full of 'O''Brien'.
- Curling is a lossy fork. don't typed into a search box and don’t curled by a CMS are different strings; search engines usually fold the two, your own database probably does not.
- ' has no semicolon-less form and no uppercase variant, unlike ". Some very old parsers do not know it at all — the numeric reference always works.
- Pattern_Syntax marks it as reserved for syntax in formal languages. Treat it as structure before typography.
- If a customer lookup fails on exactly one surname in ten thousand, check whether the two apostrophe characters are being folded before you look anywhere else.
Comparisons
In the Wild
AP's home page, on 4 August 2026, carried the same headline twice with two different characters: "This summer isn't breaking heat records — yet" in one slot, and "This summer isn’t breaking heat records — yet" in another. Across the page there were 113 of these straight apostrophes and 111 curly ones. The same page also used straight marks as quotation marks — Trump says Pirro 'folded like an umbrella' — while curling apostrophes elsewhere.
That is the whole problem in one screenful, and it is not carelessness so much as two systems writing into one page.
BBC News was consistent in the other direction that day: 44 straight apostrophes and no curly quotes of any kind. Le Monde was consistent the other way again — 238 curly right single quotes, the French elided article, against 27 straight ones. The Guardian carried 10 straight and 106 curly. Pages change; this is what those showed on the day.
FAQ
Should I use this or the curly apostrophe?
Unicode prefers U+2019 in typeset prose. In code, data and anything a machine parses, use this one.
Why does O'Brien break forms?
Because the same character delimits string literals in SQL. Parameterised queries fix it; escaping by doubling is the older workaround.
Why is the Unicode name hyphenated?
The 1.0 name was APOSTROPHE-QUOTE, recording that the character serves as both an apostrophe and a quotation mark. The alias is still in the chart.
Is ' safe to use?
In modern HTML, yes. It has no semicolon-less form and arrived later than the other quote entities, so very old parsers may not recognise it.
What is an APL quote?
A third historical use: the programming language APL used this character as its string delimiter, and Unicode records that as an alias.