The tilde is used when it’s necessary to show the inaccuracy of information, like, for example, when one needs to show the approximate time of waiting or the approximate number of ingredients in a dish. Initially, this wavy line was used in cursive. It was used to depict the skip of one or several letters (“M” and “N” as a rule). It also marks changes in pitch and tone, and in Romance languages such as Portuguese and Spanish, a kind of nasalization.