Prayer emoji meaning: 🙏, 🤲, 🙌 and the bowing figures
Folded Hands is the prayer emoji nearly everyone means. It came from Japanese phone emoji and entered Unicode 6.0 in 2010 as a gassho, the pressed-palms gesture that means please and thank you in Japan. English speakers read the same hands as praying, hoping or “bless you”, and some see a high five. The picture shows one person’s two hands, palms together, fingers up, so it is prayer by design, but the words around it decide: “ for your mum” is a prayer, “thanks ” is gratitude, “ let it be Friday” is a hope.
Palms Up Together (Emoji 5.0, 2017) is the open-handed prayer of Islam, the dua, and it is also used for “ameen”, for receiving a blessing and for begging. Raising Hands is praise rather than petition: hallelujah, “thank God”, hands lifted in worship or in celebration. Open Hands reads as blessing or welcoming, Heart Hands as love sent along with the prayer. The bowing figures make the whole body speak: Person Bowing is deep respect or thanks, Person Kneeling (Emoji 12.0, 2019) is kneeling in prayer or pleading, and Person in Lotus Position is meditation, a quiet prayer without words.
Blessed emoji: , , and the angel set
The blessed emoji people type under “feeling blessed” captions is Smiling Face with Halo, usually with Sparkles and a heart. means innocent, angelic or blessed, and with a wink it means “who, me?”, so keep it next to or when you mean it sincerely. White Heart is the heart of prayers and blessings: pure, calm, respectful, right for a sympathy prayer as well as a christening. , and add light and grace to a blessing, and Sunrise is the morning-prayer emoji, “new mercies every morning”.
Angels and heaven have their own small set: Baby Angel, the cherub used for christenings, newborns and lost little ones, Wing (Emoji 15.0, 2022) and Feather for an angel wing or a sign from someone who has passed, Cloud for heaven, and Dove, which in Christian art stands for the Holy Spirit and everywhere else for peace. “God bless you” is most often written as , or ; there is no single god bless emoji, which is why the combos below exist.
Praying emoji by faith: candles, beads, crosses and places of worship
Candle is the prayer candle and the vigil candle, lit for someone who is ill or gone. Diya Lamp is its Hindu counterpart, the clay oil lamp of Diwali and daily puja. Prayer Beads covers the Catholic rosary, the Muslim misbaha and the Hindu and Buddhist mala in one emoji, and Open Book stands in for the Bible, the Qur’an or the Torah in verse-of-the-day posts. Bell calls to prayer in churches and temples, Menorah is the Hanukkah lamp, Lotus is Buddhist and Hindu purity, and Nazar and Hamsa are blessings of protection against the evil eye.
Each faith has its building, and Place of Worship, a kneeling figure under a roof, is the neutral one for any of them: Church, Wedding chapel, Mosque, Kaaba, Synagogue, Hindu Temple and Shinto Shrine. The faith signs mark whose prayer it is; goes with Ramadan and night prayers. The full set of crosses, Islamic honorifics and other signs lives in Religious Symbols; this page keeps the ones that appear in prayers and blessings.
Prayer emoji as text: crosses, and the praying kaomoji
For a prayer symbol that behaves like text, the Latin cross comes in several plain characters: shadowed, outlined, white and heavy, and Chi Rho, the monogram of Christ. They take your font’s colour, so they suit a bio, a card or a document where a coloured would look out of place. writes the whole Bismillah, “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful”, the words that open a Muslim prayer, as one character; ﷺ is the blessing written after the Prophet’s name, is “peace be upon him” after other prophets, and marks a place in the Qur’an where the reader prostrates. They need a font with Arabic support.
Japanese kaomoji make praying hands out of the character 人 (person), which looks like two pressed palms: (-人-), (｡-人-｡) and (人´∀`) all mean please, thank you or praying. In Slack, Discord and GitHub the shortcode :pray: gives and :raised_hands: gives .
Praying hands emoji on iPhone, WhatsApp and in black or brown
, , , , , and all take skin tones. On iPhone and Android, press and hold the emoji in the keyboard and pick a shade; in WhatsApp long-press it in the picker. The copy buttons on this page give the default yellow version, which pastes anywhere; a toned version copied from a message keeps its tone. On Windows, press Win . and search “pray”; on a Mac, Ctrl Cmd Space.
Meaning shifts with age and app. Among younger users is mostly “please” and “thank you”, and , the crying-praying combo, is a plea or an exaggerated “I’m begging”. is a softer please. From a guy or a girl in a chat, after your message almost always means thanks or “hope so”, not a sermon. In a group after bad news, alone means “praying for you”, and in a reply to good news, “thank God”.
Symbols
59Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Praying hands and gestures
🙏 first; the open-handed and bowing forms beside it
Prayer objects
candles, beads, scripture and protective charms
How to use them
6 situationsClick to copyPrayer & Blessing Emoji combos
15Worth knowing
- Folded Hands comes from Japanese carrier emoji, where the pressed palms mean please or thank you; the praying meaning grew once the emoji went worldwide in 2010.
- Apple’s original had rays of light behind the hands, which fed the “is it a high five?” debate; the glow was dropped in a 2016 redesign and the hands have looked like prayer ever since.
- The praying kaomoji (-人-) works because the Chinese and Japanese character 人, “person”, looks like two palms pressed together.
- Palms Up Together was added in 2017 at the request of users who wanted the open-handed Muslim dua, since shows the pressed-palms gesture of other traditions.
- , the Bismillah written as a single character, is one of the widest characters in Unicode; it opens almost every chapter of the Qur’an.
Questions people ask
8What does the prayer emoji mean?
Praying, hoping, please or thank you. It is one person’s hands pressed together. In Japan it means please or thanks; elsewhere it mostly means prayer or gratitude, and the words next to it settle which.
Is the prayer emoji a high five?
No. The Unicode name is Folded Hands and the picture is one person’s two palms together. The high-five reading comes from an old Apple design with light behind the hands, but using it as a high five is common enough that nobody will mind.
How do I copy and paste the praying hands emoji?
Tap or click on this page and it is copied; paste it into WhatsApp, iMessage, Instagram or email. For a black or brown praying hands emoji, long-press on your phone keyboard and choose the skin tone.
What does mean from a guy?
Almost always thank you, please or “hope so”. After a favour it is thanks; after a request it is please; after a plan it is “fingers crossed”. It is not a religious statement on its own.
What is the blessed emoji?
Smiling Face with Halo, usually with and : “blessed ”. and fit a quieter, more prayerful “blessed”.
What does mean?
A plea or an exaggerated “please”, as in “ don’t leave me on read”. It can also mean praying hard that something goes well.
Is there an amen emoji?
No single one. People write “amen ”, or for praise and for ameen in Muslim messages.
What emoji means God bless you?
, or after the words. For a religious greeting add the faith sign, for example or .
