Degree (temperature) - Definition and Overview

This article describes "degree" as a unit of temperature. For alternative meanings, see Degree (disambiguation).

The term degree is used in several scales of temperature. The symbol ° is usually used, followed by the initial letter of the unit, for example °C for degree(s) Celsius. (For temperature differences, the usage is sometimes reversed; then 100 C°, or "100 Celsius degrees", is a temperature difference, while 100 °C, or "100 degrees Celsius", is an actual temperature.) These include:

• degree Celsius (°C)
• degree Fahrenheit (°F)
• degree Rankine (°R or °Ra)
• degree Réaumur (°R)

• The degree Kelvin (°K) is a former name for the SI unit of temperature. Since 1967 it has been known simply as the kelvin, with symbol K.

Degree symbol

In Unicode, the "degree sign" is U+00B0 (°). The HTML character entity reference for it is °. The Alt+ Code is Alt+0176.

Due to a similar appearance in some fonts in print and on computer screens, some other characters may be mistakenly substituted for it: the "masculine ordinal indicator" (U+00BA, º), the "ring above" (U+02DA, ˚), "superscript zero" (U+2070, ⁰), superscript zero proper (⁰) or superscript letter "o" (^o), and the "ring operator" (U+2218, ∘).