What ⚮ means
It marks a divorce in genealogical records. In a family tree, pedigree, or genogram (a diagram of family relationships), it records that a marriage ended.
In 2003, Unicode committee minutes discuss ⚮ as a genealogical symbol, two years before it was added to the standard.
It is compact notation for family records; alone in chat, ⚮ gives little context.
Without a family-record context, don't assume the recipient will recognize ⚮ as divorce.
Don't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
1Why does ⚮ show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type ⚮
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 26AE, then Alt+X to get ⚮.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “divorce symbol”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 26ae, then Enter or Space.
HTML
⚮CSS
\26AECodes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
⚮
HTML hex
⚮
CSS content
content: "\26AE";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%9A%AE
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.