Latin character L with dot above
About this character
The character ŀ is known as Latin character L with dot above and carries the Unicode code point U+0140, which is 320 in decimal. It belongs to the Latin Extended-A block (U+0100–U+017F), which gathers the accented letters of Central and Northern European languages missing from Latin-1, such as Polish, Czech and Hungarian.
In memory, ŀ takes 2 bytes in UTF-8 (0xC5 0x80) and 1 in UTF-16 (0x0140). That difference is why badly configured forms or databases garble this character: they assume one byte per character.
How to type ŀ
| System | What to do |
|---|---|
| Windows | In Word or WordPad, type 0140 and press Alt + X to turn the code into the character. |
| macOS | On a Mac, open the Character Viewer with Ctrl + ⌘ + Space and search for “Latin character L with dot above”. |
| Linux | On Linux (GTK), type Ctrl + ⇧ + U, 0140 then press Enter. |
| HTML / Web | In an HTML page, write ŀ. Use \0140 in CSS, \u0140 in JavaScript and \u0140 in Python. |
| On this site | The simplest route is the Copy button above: the character goes straight to your clipboard, ready to paste anywhere. |
Keyboards that include ŀ
This character is not on any common physical layout, so the Copy button above is the quickest way to get it into a document.
Codes and encodings
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Code point | U+0140 |
| Unicode block | Latin Extended-A (U+0100–U+017F) |
| Decimal | 320 |
| Hexadecimal | 0x0140 |
| Octal | 0500 |
| Binary | 101000000 |
| UTF-8 bytes | 0xC5 0x80 |
| UTF-16 units | 0x0140 |
| Named HTML entity | None |
| Decimal HTML entity | ŀ |
| Hex HTML entity | ŀ |
| CSS escape | \0140 |
| JavaScript escape | \u0140 |
| Python escape | \u0140 |
| URL encoding | %C5%80 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the Unicode code for ŀ?
Its code point is U+0140, which is 320 in decimal and 0500 in octal. In HTML you can write it as ŀ or ŀ.
Why does ŀ show up as a box or a question mark?
An empty box means the font has no glyph for U+0140. The character is still in the text: switching to a font that covers the block (Noto, DejaVu or Segoe UI Symbol) makes it appear.
Can I use ŀ in a filename, a URL or a password?
In a URL it must be encoded as %C5%80. Modern filesystems accept it, though it is still risky when moving files between systems. For passwords, some forms reject non-ASCII characters outright.