ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Obelus

Obelus is a fancy word for a symbol that looks like a little minus sign with a dot above and below it. It's also called the division symbol or division sign. Obelus is a special symbol that is used in math to show that you want to divide one number by another number.

For example, let's say you have 10 cookies and you want to share them equally with 2 of your friends. You can use the obelus symbol to show how many cookies each of you will get. You would write it like this: 10 ÷ 2 = 5. The obelus symbol tells you to divide 10 by 2, which equals 5. So each person would get 5 cookies.

The obelus symbol is useful because it tells you exactly what to do with the numbers you are working with. You could also write the same thing as a fraction, like 10/2, but the obelus symbol is shorter and easier to read.

Overall, obelus is just a special symbol in math that helps you divide numbers. It looks like a little minus sign with dots above and below it, and it means "divide".
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