Black Up Pointing Backhand Index

It points upward to direct attention.

Read it as “look here” or “see above” when the fingertip has a clear target. Beside a link, heading, or line, placement supplies the meaning; by itself, it can look decorative.

The historical ancestor is the manicule: a hand drawn in a book margin to mark a noteworthy passage. Pointing hands appear in records as far back as the twelfth century; they became especially common in Italian books of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Printers then offered them as type, and the attention mark moved into advertisements and signs.

Should you send it?

Send it only when the target is obvious.

In a message, it can mean “this one” or “look above.” Its register is typographic and bookish, so words or an ordinary arrow are clearer in formal messages.

This font-drawn text glyph can vary in weight or appear as a missing-glyph box. A Wingdings 2 drawing may look similar without being this portable Unicode character.