Origins of the @ Sign @ Alice Hill’s Real Tech News - Independent Tech Let’s go back to the 6th or 7th century. Latin scribes tried to save a little effort by shortening the Latin word ad (at, to, or toward) by stretching the upstroke of “d” and curving it over the “a”. Let’s go back to the 6th or 7th century. Latin scribes tried to save a little effort by shortening the Latin word ad (at, to, or toward) by stretching the upstroke of “d” and curving it over the “a”. in links > referencewith historyword