I once proposed the following definitions
\newcommand\varpm{\mathbin{\vcenter{\hbox{%
\oalign{\hfil$\scriptstyle+$\hfil\cr
\noalign{\kern-.3ex}
$\scriptscriptstyle({-})$\cr}%
}}}}
\newcommand\varmp{\mathbin{\vcenter{\hbox{%
\oalign{$\scriptstyle({+})$\cr
\noalign{\kern-.3ex}
\hfil$\scriptscriptstyle-$\hfil\cr}%
}}}}
Example
\documentclass{article}
\newcommand\varpm{\mathbin{\vcenter{\hbox{%
\oalign{\hfil$\scriptstyle+$\hfil\cr
\noalign{\kern-.3ex}
$\scriptscriptstyle({-})$\cr}%
}}}}
\newcommand\varmp{\mathbin{\vcenter{\hbox{%
\oalign{$\scriptstyle({+})$\cr
\noalign{\kern-.3ex}
\hfil$\scriptscriptstyle-$\hfil\cr}%
}}}}
\begin{document}
$a\varpm b\varmp c$
\end{document}
You could, of course, use TikZ for this:
The symbol will scale with your font size, since it uses ex
to define the path.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\newcommand\shield{%
\tikz [baseline] \draw (0,1.75ex) -- (0,0.75ex) arc [radius=0.75ex, start angle=-180, end angle=0] -- (1.5ex,1.75ex) -- cycle;%
}
A shield: \shield
\end{document}
If you're feeling fancy, you could parametrise it a bit:
\documentclass[border=3mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\newcommand\shield[1][]{%
\tikzset{
shield width/.store in=\shieldwidth,
shield width=1.5ex,
shield height/.store in=\shieldheight,
shield height=1.75ex
}%
\tikz [baseline,#1] \draw (0,\shieldheight) -- (0,\shieldwidth/2) arc [radius=\shieldwidth/2, start angle=-180, end angle=0] -- (\shieldwidth,\shieldheight) -- cycle;%
}
A shield: \shield
A wide shield: \shield[shield width=2ex]
A tall shield: \shield[shield height=3ex]
\end{document}
Best Answer
Here are some options: