Why cant Dollar symbol be used as an alternative fo jQuery in Wordpress?

Question

Why can\'t we use \"$\" instead if jQuery in wordpress? Usually \"$\" is the alternative of jQuery right? But in Wordpress it shows \"$\" is not a function.

Answer 1

The tricky thing is this particular copy of jQuery is in compatibility mode by default. That means that the typical ‘$’ shortcut for jQuery doesn’t work, so it doesn’t conflict with any other JavaScript libraries that use the dollar sign also, like MooTools or Prototype.

Source: Using ‘$’ instead of ‘jQuery’ in WordPress