140character

140character refers to the original maximum length of a single post on the social platform Twitter. Introduced at the service's launch in 2006, the 140-character limit was chosen to fit within the constraints of SMS messaging, which underpinned Twitter's early architecture. The limit applied to the main content of a tweet; features such as links were managed by a URL shortener (t.co) that allowed longer links to be represented within the remaining character space.

The cap shaped the way users wrote on Twitter, encouraging concise expression, the creative use of abbreviations and hashtags, and the frequent use of mentions. It also influenced platform features and third-party apps, with developers building tools around character counting and efficient social messaging.

History and evolution: In 2017 Twitter expanded the limit to 280 characters for most languages, reducing some of the brevity pressure while preserving the idea of microblogging. The change did not apply uniformly at launch; East Asian scripts and certain languages were handled differently in the rollout. The phrase 140character remains a historical reference to the platform's original design and to discussions about the limits of online communication.