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In printed books before the modern equal sign, equality was usually expressed with a word, such as aequales, aequantur, esgale, faciunt, ghelijck, or gleich, and sometimes by the abbreviated form aeq.

The equal symbol (=) was first used by Robert Recorde (c. 1510-1558) in 1557 in The Whetstone of Witte. He wrote, "I will sette as I doe often in woorke use, a paire of parralles, or Gemowe lines of one lengthe, thus : ==, bicause noe 2, thynges, can be moare equalle." Recorde used an elongated form of the present symbol. He proposed no other algebraic symbol.

The equal symbol did not appear in print again until 1618, when it appeared in an anonymous Appendix, very probably due to Oughtred, printed in Edward Wright's English translation of Napier's Descriptio. It reappeared 1631, when it was used by Thomas Harriot and William Oughtred .