£

From the first letter of Latin lībra (“pound”). The symbol is derived from the mediaeval tradition of placing a stroke over a letter or letters of a word (in this case L) to indicate an abbreviation; when letters have ascenders like L, the stroke frequently passes through that ascender. £ is thus cognate with the pound sign #, which was similarly derived from lb with a stroke through the ascenders.

£

1. pound sterling
   • 2007 December 5, Randeep Ramesh, “Speed limits rise as India falls in love with the car”, in The Guardian‎^[1] (in English):

     The £4bn expressways form a diamond linking Delhi with the country's three other largest cities, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta, marking the beginning of more than £35bn of road projects.

2. various other currencies called pound or lira.
   • 2007, Dave Lee (jazz musician), Nothing Rhymes with Silver 2‎^[2] (in English), page 78:

     Flanders was able to flog his piece of land, for which he had originally paid £4,000, to one of the largest gold-mining corporations for something like a couple of million smackers.

£

1. A substitute for the letter L, used as a symbol of money or perceived greed in business practices.

   £$€ (London Stock Exchange)

The practice of placing a stroke through the initial of the name for a currency as a symbol for that currency has been extended to other currency symbols, including several shown below.

• £sd (pounds, shillings and pence)
• £B (Bristol pound)
• ₤ (lira)

A cursive sigma 𐆒 for semis with a cross-bar

£

1. alternative form of 𐆘