9 Background of the Subtraction Sign

Just like the addition sign, we find one of the earliest symbols for a subtraction sign in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

It is a pair of legs, but they walk to the left for subtraction.

It is the same age as the addition symbol which is around 3,900 years old.

Two thousand, four hundred years later in Europe, mathematicians wrote the letters “M” with an overline for subtraction. The word for less in Latin was meno, which was used in math for subtraction. The letter “M” was an abbreviation or short way to write meno in the old days.

French and German mathematicians used the minus sign (-) in their writings. The Wales man, Robert Recorde who invented the equals sign (=) introduced this minus sign to the English-speaking world in 1557.