Ampersand: meaning

An ampersand (&), also commonly called an ” ‘and’ sign,” is a logogram representing the conjunction “and”. The symbol is a ligature of the letters in et, Latin for “and”. The word ampersand is a corruption of the phrase “and per se and”, meaning “and by itself is and”.[1] The Scots and Scottish English name for & is epershand, derived from “et per se and”, with the same meaning.