Cubed symbol ³

• Volume units: ft³ (cubic feet), yd³ (cubic yards), in³, m³, cm³.
• Exponents: 2³ = 8, and a cube with side s has a volume of s³.
• Density: g/cm³, lb/ft³.
• Medicine: 1 cm³ equals 1 mL. Medical writing now prefers mL over the older abbreviation cc, which can be misread.

US home projects use cubic units all the time. Mulch, gravel and concrete are sold by the cubic yard. A patio 10 ft × 12 ft and 4 in (1/3 ft) deep needs 10 × 12 × 1/3 = 40 ft³, which is about 1.5 yd³, because 1 yd³ = 27 ft³.

Like ², the ³ is a real character from the Latin-1 set, so it stays put when you paste text into email, chat, spreadsheets or file names. Superscript formatting, by contrast, turns back into a plain 3 when formatting is stripped, and m³ becomes m3.

• ² (squared) is its closest neighbor. Double-check which one you picked, since ft² and ft³ measure completely different things.
• ㎥ is a single cubic-meter character from East Asian typesetting. Write m³ in English text.
• Plain-text fallback: “cu ft,” “cu yd” or x^3 where superscripts aren’t available.

• Mac: open the Character Viewer with Control+Command+Space and search “superscript three,” or set up a text replacement.
• Word: type 3 and press Ctrl+Shift+= for superscript formatting, or insert the ³ character for text that will be copied elsewhere.
• Excel: cube a value with =A1^3, and take a cube root with =A1^(1/3).
• Phones: copy it here once and save a text replacement such as “cu3” → ³.
• LaTeX: x^3 in math mode; with siunitx, \si{\cubic\meter} for the unit.