What ♎ means
It usually identifies the person's zodiac sign.
The Libra sign can also label a moon or rising placement when those words sit next to it. A bare ♎ doesn't say which placement they mean; check the surrounding text before assuming it's their sun sign.
Why is Libra a pair of scales?
Babylonians saw a balance there; early Greeks saw Scorpio's claws.
Babylonian sky-watchers already called this stretch of sky the Scales, though their texts also linked it to Scorpio's pincers. Early Greek writers named it the Claws, later also the Yoke, meaning a balance beam. The Latin name Libra, "scales", became the standard that Western astrology kept.
The ♎ glyph is usually read as a simplified balance beam over its base; some modern astrologers see the sun on the horizon instead. Horoscope Libra begins at the September equinox, when day and night are nearly equal, even though that equinox now falls in the constellation Virgo.
Casual astrology shorthand: a sign label, not a personality report.
If your reader may not recognize ♎, add the word Libra.
Don't confuse it with
1Combination ideas
1Worth knowing
- Among the traditional Western zodiac emblems, Libra's scales are the only object; the other eleven are people, animals or creatures.
Questions people ask
2Why is the Libra emoji purple?
Only on some platforms. Others draw it on a different background; the colour is artwork and adds no astrological meaning.
What dates are Libra?
Roughly September 23 to October 22 in Western astrology. The switch-over day shifts by a day between years. Indian Vedic astrology, where the sign is Tula, uses different dates.
How to type ♎
:libra:the common shortcode; support varies by platform.♎Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.