How to Escape a character in a Bash command String

If you try to echo a String as a Bash command or a Script that has a special character such as an exclamation mark, you will see that it will not work as intended or you get an error.

Example:

bash-3.2$ echo Hello World!
bash: !": event not found

Below is an extensive table that enlists the special characters and how to escape them with Bash String or Script.

Special Character	Meaning	How to Escape
"	Double quote	\"
'	Single quote	\'
$	Dollar sign	\$
&	Ampersand	\&
(	Left parenthesis	\( or \)
)	Right parenthesis	\( or \)
{	Left curly brace	\{
}	Right curly brace	\}
[	Left square bracket	\[
]	Right square bracket	\]
!	Exclamation mark	\!
*	Asterisk (wildcard)	\*
?	Question mark (wildcard)	\?
\	Backslash	\\
>	Greater than sign (output redirection)	\>
<	Less than sign (input redirection)	\<
;	Semicolon (command separator)	\;

Now let's make our "Hello World!" string work.

$ echo Hello World \!
Hello World

Example:

# echo <
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'

Fix:

# echo \<
<

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