What ๐ฒ means
A dragon: fantasy, the zodiac sign, or fierce energy. The words around it tell you which. In a chat about fantasy books, films or games it is simply a dragon. Next to New Year wishes, lanterns or red envelopes it is the Dragon of the Chinese zodiac, a wish for luck and success. After a win or a bold boast it can mean fierce or unstoppable.
Its look explains the zodiac reading. The emoji came from Japanese phone emoji of the 2000s, where the dragon head stood for ่พฐ, the Dragon sign of the zodiac. So most platforms draw it as an Asian dragon, though the details vary from phone to phone.
Why is the dragon a lucky sign in East Asia?
There the dragon is a noble creature, not a monster. The Chinese dragon (lรณng in Mandarin) is a long, scaly creature of rivers, seas and clouds that brings rain, and it was the emblem of the emperor. It is one of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, the cycle that gives each year an animal, and the zodiacs of Korea, Japan and Vietnam have a Dragon year too. Many European tales cast the dragon as a winged, fire-breathing beast for a hero like Saint George to slay, so readers may picture different dragons. When it matters, go by the sender's words.
Playful and bold; most often a fantasy nod, a greeting or a bit of swagger.
In a Lunar New Year greeting it is a lucky wish, not a hint that anyone is a monster.
Part of collections
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readingsLunar New Year greeting, usually for a Year of the Dragon: luck and prosperity.
Don't confuse it with
2
Related characters
3
Combination ideas
4Worth knowing
- The dragon is the only mythical creature among the twelve Chinese zodiac animals; the other eleven, from rat to pig, are real.
- Dragon years count as lucky for a birth, and some Chinese-speaking societies have seen birth bumps in them, though not every Dragon year.
Questions people ask
2What is the difference between ๐ฒ and ?
Only the framing. ๐ฒ is the dragon's head, the full dragon. People use them for the same things.
When is the next Year of the Dragon?
2036. By the Chinese lunar calendar the last one ran from February 2024 to January 2025; Japan counts zodiac years from 1 January.
More like this
14
Collections with ๐ฒ
11
How to type or find ๐ฒ
- Also called
- dragon head ยท dragon head emoji ยท Chinese dragon emoji
- Search it as
- dragon emoji ยท dragon face emoji ยท chinese dragon ยท year of the dragon ยท lunar new year dragon ยท zodiac dragon
- Type it as
- :dragon_face:
- Around since
- 2010 ยท Emoji 0.6
- Shows up on
- Every phone ยท iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux
:dragon_face:Common shortcode in Slack, GitHub, Discord, Mattermost and other chat apps; a few apps use a different name.🐲Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.