U00BA

U+00BA is the Unicode code point for the masculine ordinal indicator, a punctuation-like character that appears as a small circle (º). It is part of the Latin-1 Supplement block and has the Unicode name MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR. The code point value is 186 in decimal.

This symbol is used in several languages, most notably Spanish and Portuguese, after numbers to denote masculine ordinals, as in 1º for “primero” and 2º for “segundo.” The feminine ordinal indicator, corresponding to 1ª and 2ª, is U+00AA (ª). The glyph is typically rendered as a superscript circle placed to the upper-right of the preceding numeral, though exact typography can vary by font.

In digital text, U+00BA can be encoded using a numeric character reference such as º or the named HTML entity º. It is important not to confuse it with the degree symbol, which is U+00B0 (°) and is used for temperatures and angles; the degree symbol is not the same character as the masculine ordinal indicator.

Beyond Spanish and Portuguese, usage of the masculine ordinal indicator is less common in other languages, and many modern texts prefer spelling out ordinals or using language-specific conventions rather than the symbol. In Unicode, U+00BA remains a compact typographic shorthand for masculine ordinals in affected languages and legacy texts.