Downwards Arrow With Small Triangle Arrowhead

This down arrow symbol points downward or marks the next step below.

An engineering book published in 1737 by Bernard Forest de Bélidor used an archer-like arrow in a waterworks diagram to show water flow and a waterwheel turning. That example shows arrows at work in diagrams; it does not establish the origin of this exact shape.

Arrows later took on abstract roles in maps and logic notation. This design belongs to the Wingdings 3 lineage, a font set that supplied ready-made symbols for documents. Wingdings first appeared on Windows in 1992; a Unicode proposal maps its glyph 3156 to this character, letting the arrow travel as text instead of relying on a font's private mapping.

Why does the arrow show as a square?

A font without the character may show a box or blank space.

As of September 2026, the viewing device's font support determines how this symbol appears. An unsupported character may show as a missing-glyph box, a fallback code point, or blank space.

When direction matters, pair it with a nearby word such as “down” or “next.” Use Unicode input instead of choosing a Wingdings font glyph; that older mapping depends on the font.