The character \&, representing the conjunction and. It is a corruption of "and, per se, and" (and, by itself, and). This expression was formerly very common in this country, but seems now to have gone out of use. It may, however, be retained in the interior, where the modern system of education has not reached. Mr. Halliwell, who notices this word in his Archaic and Prov. Dict'y, says, that it is or was common in England. In Hampshire it is pronounced amperzed, and very often amperze-and. Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes, mentions an ancient alphabet of the fourteenth century, now in the Harleian Library, at the end of which is "X Y wyth ESED AND per se--Amen."