Pick from 526 hand symbols for inclusive profiles and reactions. Mostly drawn from the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block.
☚☛☜☝☞☟✌
Copy hand symbols
526 characters and sequences. One tap copies the real code points.
No entry on this page matches.
01
Hand Symbols with Unicode names and HTML codes
12 of the 526 entries, shown with their full detail. Where two entries look the same, the name settles it. The HTML references beside each name reproduce the code-point sequence character for character.
Black Left Pointing IndexU+261A☚
Symbol · decimal ☚
Raised Back Of Hand: Medium-Dark Skin ToneU+1F91A U+1F3FE🤚 🏾
Emoji sequence · decimal 🤚 🏾
Leftwards Pushing Hand: Dark Skin ToneU+1FAF7 U+1F3FF🫷 🏿
Emoji sequence · decimal 🫷 🏿
Sign Of The Horns: Dark Skin ToneU+1F918 U+1F3FF🤘 🏿
Hand Symbols: types, meanings and practical differences
Hands point, celebrate and express gestures, with both monochrome symbols and skin-tone-aware emoji forms.
Gestures, roles and bodies in compact form. Many carry modifiers. The page carries 526 distinct entries: 83 single characters and 443 sequences.
Representative names include Black Left Pointing Index, Raised Back Of Hand: Medium-Dark Skin Tone, Leftwards Pushing Hand: Dark Skin Tone, Sign Of The Horns: Dark Skin Tone. The commonest name families across the whole inventory are Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick (435), Zero Width Joiner (144), Variation Selector-16 (127). Single-character values span U+261A to U+1FAF8.
Browse hand symbols by type
☚☛☜☞☟
Symbol
5 entries
☝✌🤞🤟🤘
Emoji or pictograph
78 entries
✌️☝️✍️👋🏻👋🏼
Emoji sequence
443 entries
The shape of this collection
Encoded span for hand symbols
The span runs U+261A to U+1FAF8. By Unicode general category that is symbol 83.
Name patterns that repeat
Sorting every formal name puts Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick (435), Zero Width Joiner (144), Variation Selector-16 (127) at the top.
Joiners, selectors and length
443 entries span more than one code point: 143 with a zero-width joiner, 127 with a variation selector, the longest running to 5 code points.
Picking the right hand symbol
Two look almost the same: Woman Gesturing No and Woman Bowing: Dark Skin Tone. They are different characters: U+1F645 U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F and U+1F647 U+1F3FF U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F. Start with emoji sequence.
It is the biggest group, with 443. Symbol is the specialist choice, with just 5. Want colour?
Pick one of the 521 emoji. Want it to match your text? Pick one of the 5 plain ones.
Then paste it where it will live and look at it.
These are grouped by what people use them for. Unicode's own categories may split them differently.
443Emoji sequence
Several code points joined into one image. 84% here.
78Emoji or pictograph
Drawn by the operating system, not your font. 15% here.
5Symbol
Ordinary text symbols, styled by your CSS. 1% here.
03
Hand Symbols explained in plain English
Short summary
You can copy any of the 526 hand symbols below. The largest set is emoji sequence, with 443. Unicode keeps most of them in a group called Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs. Watch the 521 emoji. Unlike the 5 plain ones, you cannot change how they look.
01
3 groups, not one list
Emoji sequence is the biggest at 443. The rest split between emoji or pictograph and emoji sequence.
02
Which blocks they come from
They come from Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs (571), Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs (157) and General Punctuation (144). They span U+261A to U+1FAF8, so no one font covers them all.
03
Easy to confuse
Woman Gesturing No and Woman Bowing: Dark Skin Tone look alike. They are not the same character.
04
443 entries are sequences
443 use more than one character. Copy the whole thing or it breaks.
Terms worth knowing
Useful terms when searching or describing hand symbols.
Symbol
Emoji or pictograph
Emoji sequence
Hand
Pointing
Gesture
Fingers
Left
Index
Raised
Back
Medium-Dark
A quick choice checklist
Match the meaning. Start with symbol when that group fits your message.
Read the name. Compare Black Left Pointing Index with Raised Back Of Hand: Medium-Dark Skin Tone before you pick by shape.
Test the result. Paste the full value into the app, document, or profile where it will appear.
Hand symbols differ by direction, gesture and modifiers
Older pointing hands are monochrome text symbols, while modern hand emoji can use skin-tone modifiers and culturally variable gestures.
Family
Examples
Communication check
Text pointers
☚ ☛ ☜ ☞
Useful for typographic direction; verify left and right in the layout.
Vertical pointers
☝ ☟ 👆 👇
May mean direction, selection or emphasis depending on context.
Social gestures
✌ 🤞 🤙
Meanings can differ by culture and audience.
Modifier-capable emoji
👈 👉 and related forms
Copy the complete base-plus-skin-tone sequence when a modifier is intended.
Practical note: Label navigation actions with words and avoid assuming a gesture is universally friendly. Identity choices should follow the person represented.
Tip: A symbol should decorate a label, not replace it — plain words keep the meaning available to search and to assistive technology.
04
How to use hand symbols
One click copies the characters themselves, not a picture of them. Use Ctrl V on Windows and Linux, ⌘ V on a Mac, or long-press and Paste on a phone.
01
Inclusive profile and identity text
Black Left Pointing Index is the safe pick here. Let the words beside it carry the meaning.
02
Gesture-based reactions
Emoji sequence suits gesture-based reactions. Pick one whose stroke weight matches the text around it.
03
Health, biology and people labels
When creating health, biology and people labels, paste the complete entry — several of these are multi-code-point sequences that break if truncated.
Copy-ready hand symbols examples for inclusive profile and identity text
Inclusive profile and identity text☚ Hand reference
Gesture-based reactions☚ ☛ ☜
Health, biology and people labels☜ hand ☚
05
Keyboard entry for hand symbols
Copying is quicker, but these are typeable too. On Windows the alt code is the character's decimal code point; in Word the hexadecimal followed by Alt X does the same job without a keypad.
Character
Name
Windows
Hex
HTML
☚
Black Left Pointing Index
Alt 9754
261A
☚
🙍
Person Frowning
Not available
1F64D
🙍
🍵
Teacup Without Handle
Not available
1F375
🍵
The alt-code route requires a real keypad and cannot address anything above U+FFFF. 73 entries here sit above that ceiling. A further 443 are sequences, which no shortcut reproduces — copy those instead. The complete keyboard guide covers every platform method in full.
06
How hand symbols render across fonts, apps and devices
Unicode keeps 65% of these in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs. The rest come from Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs and General Punctuation. You get two behaviours here.
5 are plain text. 521 are emoji and arrive in colour you cannot change. Unicode files the emoji ones under People & Body and Smileys & Emotion.
443 entries are made of several parts. 143 of those are held together by a hidden joiner. Copy the whole thing, or it breaks apart.
Some are as recent as Emoji 15.0, so old devices may draw an empty box.
The clipboard carries code points, not the drawing on this page, so weight, spacing and colour can all shift between iPhone, Android, Windows, macOS and an exported PDF.
83Single characters
443Sequences
521Emoji properties
07
Common mistakes with hand symbols
1
Treating Black Left Pointing Index and Raised Back Of Hand: Medium-Dark Skin Tone as the same character.
2
Thinking every one of the 526 works the same everywhere.
3
Copying only part of one of the 443 multi-code-point sequences instead of the whole value.
4
Reaching for one of the 521 emoji entries where a text mark was needed, so the colour artwork clashes with the surrounding type.
08
Hand Symbols questions and answers
What is the difference between Woman Gesturing No and Woman Bowing: Dark Skin Tone?+
They are two distinct Unicode characters: Woman Gesturing No is U+1F645 U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F (HTML 🙅 ‍ ♀ ️) and Woman Bowing: Dark Skin Tone is U+1F647 U+1F3FF U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F (HTML 🙇 🏿 ‍ ♀ ️). A font may draw them almost identically, but they sort and search as separate values.
What is the HTML code for black left pointing index?+
Either reference works: ☚ or ☚. Both resolve to ☚. Pasting the raw character is fine too once the document is UTF-8.
Which hand symbols work as plain text rather than emoji?+
Look for the 5 non-emoji entries. Those behave like letters — style them, colour them, put them in a heading. The 521 emoji entries are drawn by the operating system instead.
Why does one of these hand symbols split apart when I paste it?+
443 entries here are sequences of more than one code point, and 143 of those are held together by a zero-width joiner. If the destination does not support the sequence, or if the copy was truncated, the parts render individually. Copy the entry with the button rather than by selecting the characters.
Which Unicode block are these hand symbols in?+
The answer is Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, covering 571 of them; the rest come from Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs and General Punctuation. Coverage tends to follow the block: long-established ones render nearly everywhere, recent additions do not.
Will these hand symbols work on older phones?+
The newest entry on this page was introduced in Emoji 15.0. Devices that have not received a font update since then will show a blank rectangle instead. Test on a real older device before using a recent character where the meaning matters.
To wrap one of these hand symbols around a word, build the line in the Symbol Maker. Every tool on this site runs locally and is listed in the Unicode tools hub.
10
How this page was built
These 526 entries are measured, not sampled or approximated. Formal names and categories come straight from the Unicode 17.0 database, with emoji status taken from the published emoji data rather than judged by eye.