What ๐ means
Usually nighttime, late hours, or a dreamy, mysterious mood.
Most people pick ๐ simply because they want a half moon for a late-night post, a sleep update, or an atmospheric photo caption. Alongside the other seven moon-phase emojis ๐, it also appears in rows to suggest passing time, changing moods, or a countdown.
Only stargazers, calendar trackers, and astrology or tarot posts usually care that it specifically marks the waning half moonโa phase astrology writers often link to winding down, reflection, and letting go before the new moon.
Why is a half-lit moon called the last quarter?
"Quarter" measures the Moon's monthly journey, not how much looks bright.
About three weeks after the new moon, the Moon has completed three-quarters of its cycle and is heading back toward dark. Sunlight hits half of the whole lunar globe, and from Earth we see half of that sunlit hemisphereโa quarter of the entire Moon, which looks like a flat-edged half disc in the sky.
The emoji shows the left side lit because Unicode drew the moon phases from a Northern Hemisphere viewpoint. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, the real last quarter moon is lit on the right instead, looking like the first quarter emoji ().
Calm, nocturnal, and slightly mysterious; fits casual chats, bios, and skywatching notes alike.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the visual lit side is reversed from the real sky.
Part of the collection
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readingsSets a quiet, nocturnal, or dreamy mood; almost never a literal report on tonight's lunar phase.
Don't confuse it with
4
Related characters
3
Combination ideas
3Worth knowing
- Unlike the evening half moon (), the real last quarter moon rises around midnight, reaches its highest point at dawn, and stays visible in the morning blue sky.
Questions people ask
2Should I use ๐ or in the Southern Hemisphere?
It depends on whether you want the name or the picture to match. In Australia, New Zealand, or South America, the waning last-quarter moon has its right side lit, so matches what you see in the sky while ๐ matches the official phase name.
Is there any secret slang meaning behind ๐?
No. Unlike the smirk-faced moons ( and ), which carry heavy irony or innuendo in messages, the plain ๐ is straightforward and used for night, space, or mood.
More like this
13
Collections with ๐
7
How to type or find ๐
- Also called
- half moon ยท third quarter moon ยท waning moon
- Search it as
- last quarter ยท third quarter ยท moon phase ยท left half moon ยท night ยท lunar cycle
- Type it as
- :last_quarter_moon:
- Around since
- 2015 ยท Emoji 1.0
- Shows up on
- Every phone ยท iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux
:last_quarter_moon: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.