Английский Этимологический словарь - ampersand

- 1837, contraction of and per se and, meaning "(the character) '&' by itself is 'and.' " The symbol is based on the L. word et "and," and comes from an old Roman system of shorthand signs (ligatures), attested in Pompeiian graffiti, but not (as sometimes stated) from the Tironian Notes, which was a different form of shorthand, probably invented by Cicero's companion Marcus, which used a different symbol, something like a reversed gamma, to indicate et. This Tironian symbol was maintained by some medieval scribes, including Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, who sprinkled their works with a symbol like a numeral 7 to indicate the word and.