Hand Emoji

👋 waving hand is hello and goodbye. 👍 thumbs up is yes, agreed, got it, though in some group chats a lone 👍 now reads as curt. 👎 is the opposite. 👌 OK hand means perfect or fine, and 👏 is applause, sincere or sarcastic depending on how many you send.

🙏 folded hands means please, thank you or a prayer; in Japan the gesture is a polite thank-you, and some people read it as a high five. 🙌 raising hands is celebration, "finally!" or praise. 🤝 handshake seals a deal, and 💪 flexed biceps is strength and "you've got this".

Hand gesture emoji with tricky meanings

🤌 pinched fingers is the Italian gesture for "ma che vuoi?", roughly "what do you want?" or "what are you talking about?". Online it also means chef's kiss: something done perfectly. It joined emoji in 2020.

✌️ victory hand is peace, victory or "peace out". 🤘 sign of the horns is rock and metal, while 🤟 love-you gesture is the American Sign Language handshape for "I love you". They look alike: 🤟 has the thumb out. 🤙 call me hand doubles as the shaka, the Hawaiian "hang loose".

🫰 hand with index finger and thumb crossed is the K-pop finger heart, and in some places it means money. 🤞 is hoping for luck, 🖖 is the Star Trek Vulcan salute, and 🫵 points straight at the reader: "you". 🖕 needs no explanation.

Hand emoji heart, pointing hands and other hand emoji combos

For love, 🫶 heart hands is the hand emoji heart people look for: two hands shaped into a heart, added in 2021. 🫰 is the smaller finger heart, and 🤟 says "I love you" in sign language.

Pointing fingers carry a lot of meaning in pairs. 👉👈 with a shy face is a famous nervous request. 👇 points at the next message or the comments, 👆 at what was said above, and ☝️ means "wait, one thing". Newer hands such as 🫱 and 🫲 reach sideways, so 🫱🫲 together look like a handshake.

Every human hand emoji supports five skin tones, added in 2015 and based on the dermatology Fitzpatrick scale. The handshake 🫱🏻‍🫲🏿 can even mix two different tones.

Hand symbols that are not emoji: ☞ ☜ and friends

Long before emoji, printers used a small pointing hand called a manicule or index to mark important passages. Unicode keeps it as ☞ ☜ ☟ and the solid ☛ ☚. Because these are text symbols, they take the colour of the surrounding text and look the same on every phone, which makes them popular in bios and usernames.

A second family came from the Wingdings font: reversed thumbs 🖒 🖓, the open hand 🖑, the victory hand 🖔, the OK hand 🖏, the writing hand 🖎 and pointing hands in every direction, such as 🖝 🖜 🖙 🖛. Not every device has a font for these, so test them before you rely on them.