What is the difference between Set Minus and Reverse Solidus?

Set Minus is U+2216 in the Mathematical Operators block. Reverse Solidus is U+005C in the Basic Latin block. They are distinct Unicode codepoints and may appear visually similar depending on the font.

What is the HTML entity for Set Minus?

The HTML entity for Set Minus (U+2216) is ∖.

What is the HTML entity for Reverse Solidus?

The HTML entity for Reverse Solidus (U+005C) is \.

Are Set Minus and Reverse Solidus the same Unicode character?

No. Set Minus is U+2216 (decimal 8726) and Reverse Solidus is U+005C (decimal 92). They are separate codepoints.

What are the UTF-8 encodings of Set Minus and Reverse Solidus?

Set Minus (U+2216) encodes as E2 88 96 in UTF-8. Reverse Solidus (U+005C) encodes as 5C in UTF-8.

Set Minus vs Reverse Solidus

Compare two Unicode characters side by side — encodings, HTML entities, escape sequences, and Unicode properties. Useful for distinguishing visually similar characters like hyphens and dashes, quotation marks, or homoglyphs.

∖

Set Minus

U+2216

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Reverse Solidus

U+005C

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Property Comparison

Property	Set Minus	Reverse Solidus
Codepoint	`U+2216`	`U+005C`
Decimal	`8726`	`92`
HTML Entity	`∖`	`\`
HTML Decimal	`∖`	`\`
HTML Hex	`∖`	`\`
UTF-8	`E2 88 96`	`5C`
UTF-16	`22 16`	`00 5C`
UTF-32	`00002216`	`0000005C`
CSS Escape	`\2216`	`\5C`
JS Escape	`\u2216`	`\u005C`
Python Escape	`\u2216`	`\u005C`
URL Encoded	`%E2%88%96`	`%5C`
Category	`Math Symbol (Sm)`	`Other Punctuation (Po)`
Block	`Mathematical Operators`	`Basic Latin`
Script	`Common`	`Common`
Bidi Class	`ON`	`ON`
Unicode Version	`1.1`	`1.1`

Rows highlighted in amber differ between the two characters.

Common Comparisons

Frequently confused character pairs.

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