ASCII Character (

Parentheses /pəˈrɛnθɪsiːz/ (singular, parenthesis /pəˈrɛnθɪsɪs/) are also called "brackets" (UK, Ireland, Canada, West Indies, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia), "parens" /pəˈrɛnz/, "round brackets", "circle brackets" or "smooth brackets". A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'right' bracket or, alternatively, an "opening bracket" or "closing bracket", respectively, depending on the directionality of the context.