A typographical or computer symbol (←) that points backward or to the left, used in programming and technical documentation.
Compound of 'back' and 'arrow,' combining Old English 'bæc' with Old Norse 'ǫrvar' (arrow). Created in the 20th century as computing terminology for directional symbols.
In programming languages like Haskell, the backwards arrow (←) is used to assign values in a way that reads right-to-left, which trips up new programmers who are used to reading left-to-right!
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