Using the Greater Than or Equal Sign
The greater than or equal sign puts a bar under > to admit equality. a ≥ b reads "a is at least b" or "a is greater than or equal to b". It is the natural way to express a floor: a minimum age, a lower bound in a proof, a threshold a sensor must reach. ### Why the bar matters
The strict sign > excludes the boundary; ≥ includes it. Confusing the two is the classic off-by-one error in maths and in rules. "Score ≥ 70 passes" lets a score of exactly 70 through; "score > 70" does not. Requirement lists in software ("Node ≥ 18", "Android ≥ 12") always mean the named version qualifies, which is precisely why the bar is there.
Alternate forms
Unicode encodes three styles for the same relation. ≥, with a horizontal bar, is the American and general English convention. ⩾ slants the bar to echo the angle and appears in British, French and Russian typesetting; LaTeX gives it with \geqslant. ≧, with a full two-bar equals sign, is the standard shape in Japanese and Korean schoolbooks. Choose one and stay with it; mixing them in one document looks like an error even though they mean the same thing.
Spacing and direction
Give the sign a space on each side (n ≥ 1) and remember that the open end faces the larger value, so in a ≥ b the wide mouth opens toward a. The relation is the reverse of the less than or equal sign, and a ≥ b is identical to b ≤ a. ### Code and spreadsheets
Every mainstream language writes it as >=, and so do Excel, Google Sheets and SQL: =COUNTIF(A:A, ">=50"). Pasting ≥ inside a formula or a script fails, although coding fonts with ligatures will happily display >= as ≥ on screen. Save the Unicode glyph for comments, README files, user interface text and documentation, where it is more readable than the ASCII pair.
Typing it
On a Mac, Option + . produces ≥, right beside Option + , for ≤. Windows lacks a Latin-1 Alt code, but the DOS-era Alt + 242 still works in many applications, and Word converts 2265 to ≥ when you press Alt + X. The iPhone keyboard and Gboard both tuck it under a long-press of the > key on their symbol pages, sharing the pop-up with the » guillemet. The HTML entity is ≥.
Outside the classroom
Job adverts ("≥ 3 years experience"), spec sheets ("IP rating ≥ 67"), medical guidance ("BMI ≥ 30") and gaming requirements all lean on it. In bios it doubles as a pointed arrow, which is why it shows up in the same layouts as the arrow symbols collection, and gym accounts use "≥ yesterday" as a motto. Set the surrounding text in the bold fonts generator if you want the number to stand out next to it.