Moon emoji meanings: 🌙, 🌕 and the moon faces
Crescent Moon is the moon emoji most people reach for. It means night, bedtime and good night, calm and rest, and in Muslim communities the new crescent that opens Ramadan and Eid. Alone in a reply it is a soft sign-off; with or it is a wish for a good night. Full Moon is the bright night itself: a full-moon walk, a werewolf joke , or the finishing point of , the "to the moon" of crypto and startup chat.
The four moon faces are where the fun is. New Moon Face, the dark moon with a sideways look, is the internet's sly, shady or flirty face: it says "I know what you did", "that was suggestive" or simply makes a plain message cheeky. Full Moon Face is its bright twin, a smug or awkward grin that reads as "well, this is uncomfortable" or "I'm pretending not to notice". First Quarter Moon Face and Last Quarter Moon Face are the gentle ones, sleepy crescents with a soft smile made for good night texts and bedtime stories.
Moon phases emoji in order
The eight phase emoji follow the lunar month, which lasts about 29.5 days: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter (also called third quarter) and waning crescent, after which the cycle starts again. Select and copy the text sequence in this paragraph so every reader sees the cycle at a glance; reversed, shows the moon shrinking to dark. Waxing means growing toward full and waning means shrinking toward new; in the emoji the lit side grows from the right, which is how the moon looks from the Northern Hemisphere. From Australia, South Africa or Argentina the real moon is mirrored, so the on your phone looks like in your sky.
People use the phases as a calendar in a tiny picture. Astrology and witchcraft posts tag intentions by phase ( for new beginnings, for release), a weather or sky app tells you tonight's phase so you can match it, and progress bars built from moons show a goal filling up. The half moons and double as "halfway there" and "half asleep". No emoji updates itself, so for "the current moon phase" look it up, then pick the one that matches.
Moon symbols as text: and the astrology moons
Where colour emoji look wrong or do not render, there are plain-text moons. and (first and last quarter moon) have been in Unicode since 1993; they take the colour and weight of the surrounding text, which is why they fill so many bios, usernames and sparkle lines like ｡ ｡ or luna . is the star and crescent of Islam and of several national flags; on most phones it shows as the emoji . is the power-sleep symbol from standby buttons, a neat minimalist crescent. The half-circle shapes and the plain are what people usually mean by a "half moon symbol" or a black-and-white moon.
Astrologers have a moon vocabulary of their own. or marks the Moon in a birth chart, and are the lunar nodes (north and south node, Rahu and Ketu in Vedic astrology), is Black Moon Lilith, the point on the Moon's orbit farthest from Earth, and White Moon Selena is its counterpart in the Russian school of astrology. is the old alchemical sign for a lunar eclipse and the alchemists' silver, the metal they paired with the Moon. In Chinese and Japanese the character 月 means both moon and month, and the circled is the Japanese abbreviation for Monday, the moon's day.
The moon icon on your phone: iPhone, Discord and dark mode
A good share of "moon symbol on iPhone" searches are not about emoji at all. A crescent in the iPhone status bar means Do Not Disturb or a Sleep Focus is on, and a crescent next to a conversation in Messages means you have hidden alerts for that chat. In Discord a crescent beside someone's avatar means they are idle, and in most apps a moon button switches on dark mode.
To type the emoji, open the emoji keyboard and search "moon": the crescent, the phases and the faces come up together, which is quicker than scrolling to them among the sun and weather emoji. Text moons have no key, so copy from this page, or add them to your phone's text replacement so a short word expands to .
Moon festivals and moon folklore
Moon Viewing Ceremony shows tsukimi, the Japanese custom of watching the autumn full moon with pampas grass and a plate of dango; the Chinese and Vietnamese Mid-Autumn Festival on the same full moon fills the streets with lanterns and tables with mooncakes. In East Asian folklore the markings on the full moon are a rabbit pounding rice cakes, or the elixir of immortality in the Chinese telling, which is why a rabbit and a moon go together on cards and in captions. The crescent announces Ramadan, which begins with the sighting of the new moon, and Eid at its end.
Western lore gives the moon to the night creatures: the wolf howling at a full moon, the owl , the bat and the witch's crystal ball under moonlight. A blue moon is the second full moon in one calendar month, a supermoon a full moon at its closest to Earth and a harvest moon the full moon nearest the autumn equinox; none of them has its own emoji, so people write with , or .
Symbols
66Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Moon phases in order
new to full and back; text shapes line up under the emoji
Moon symbols as text
for bios, usernames, charts and anywhere colour emoji don't fit
How to use them
6 situationsClick to copyMoon Emoji & Symbols combos
15Worth knowing
- All thirteen moon emoji from to arrived together in Unicode 6.0 in 2010, while the text crescents go back to Unicode 1.1 in 1993.
- Neal Agarwal's Password Game has a rule that your password must contain the current phase of the moon as an emoji, which sends players hunting for or on the right night.
- The phase emoji are drawn for the Northern Hemisphere; south of the equator a waxing crescent is lit on the left, so it looks like .
- Monday is literally moon-day: English Monday, Latin dies Lunae and Japanese 月曜日, abbreviated with the circled , all name the day after the moon.
- A blue moon is not blue: the name is for the second full moon in a calendar month, which comes round roughly every two and a half years.
Questions people ask
8How do I copy and paste moon emoji?
Tap or click any moon on this page to copy it, then paste it into your message, caption or bio. On a phone you can also open the emoji keyboard and search "moon"; the crescent , the phases – and the faces all come up together.
What does the moon emoji mean?
means night, bedtime and good night, and is also used for Ramadan and Eid. is a full moon, a big night or "to the moon". The faces have their own meanings: sly or shady, smug or awkward, and sleepy good night.
What does the moon emoji mean from a girl or a guy?
is a sly, knowing look. It usually means the message is a tease, a flirt or a hint that something was suggestive, like a sideways glance or a smirk. From a friend it is just cheeky; in a flirty chat it adds a wink.
What are the moon phases emoji in order?
new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, waning crescent. Select and copy this text sequence: .
What does the half moon emoji mean?
and are the first and last quarter, half lit; in chat they mean halfway there or half asleep. and are the half moons with a face, used for good night. The half-moon icon on an iPhone status bar means Do Not Disturb or a Focus is on.
What is the moon symbol on my iPhone?
A crescent in the status bar means Do Not Disturb or a Sleep Focus is switched on. A crescent next to a conversation in Messages means alerts for that chat are hidden. Turn them off in Control Centre or by swiping the conversation and tapping the bell.
How do I type a moon symbol as text?
There is no moon key, so copy or from this page. On Windows you can also hold Alt and type 9790 for or 9789 for on the number pad, and on a Mac you can find them in the Character Viewer (Control Command Space) by searching "moon".
Is there a moon emoji for the current phase?
No emoji changes on its own. Check tonight's phase in a weather app or a moon calendar, then pick the matching one from . The Password Game and many astrology posts ask for exactly this.
