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Tumbleweed vs Octothorpe - What's the difference?

tumbleweed | octothorpe |

As nouns the difference between tumbleweed and octothorpe

is that tumbleweed is any plant which habitually breaks away from its roots in the autumn, and is driven by the wind, as a light, rolling mass, over the fields and prairies; as witch grass, wild indigo, , etc while octothorpe is (chiefly|us) the hash or square symbol (), used mainly in telephony and computing.

tumbleweed

English

Noun

(wikipedia tumbleweed)
  • Any plant which habitually breaks away from its roots in the autumn, and is driven by the wind, as a light, rolling mass, over the fields and prairies; as witch grass, wild indigo, , etc.
  • (attributive) Describing unwanted silence and inactivity. Often used of a situation when one makes a statement that is ignored or ill-received from one’s audience. Gives the impression that a tumbleweed has passed through the room, as the resultant silence is likened to that of a desolate desert.
  • * 2000 January 21, "Plsntgrn" in alt.music.progressive, "Re: SOAR Budget (A Long Guestimate)" [http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.progressive/msg/c5bc2926d0712699]:
  • Putting an ad in the local paper that Spock's Beard and Arena are in town will get you a tumbleweed response and some wasted revenue.
  • * 2005 , Trevor Wright, How to Be a Brilliant English Teacher [http://books.google.com/books?id=5V64WA533MoC], ISBN 041533246X, page 68:
  • "Why do families argue?" may only induce the tumbleweed response. (Could you answer that question out of the blue?)

    Derived terms

    * tumbleweed moment

    octothorpe

    English

    Alternative forms

    * octothorp

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (chiefly, US) The hash or square symbol (), used mainly in telephony and computing
  • * 1982 , Willard R. Espy, A Children's Almanac of Words at Play , Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., page 230
  • Octothorp is the
  • on a push-button telephone. Rumor at the telephone company is that a man named Charles B. Octothorp, wanting to make his name famous...
  • * 2004 , Andrew Pitonyak, Openoffice.Org Macros Explained , Hentzenwerke, page 139
  • Strings are enclosed in double quotation marks, numbers are not enclosed in anything, and dates and Boolean values are enclosed between octothorpe (
  • ) characters.
  • Synonyms

    * hash, octothorn, pound sign, number sign, hashtag, tic-tac-toe sign, naughts and crosses sign/symbol

    See also

    *