What 🉢 means
The longevity character 寿, styled into a circle.
Shòu means long life, one of the most cherished blessings in Chinese culture. For centuries craftspeople have bent the character into a round medallion, called 团寿 (tuánshòu, "round longevity") in Chinese, so it fits on bowls, silk robes, furniture, roof tiles and birthday decorations. 🉢 is a Unicode symbol modelled on that medallion, separate from the ordinary character.
Longevity also has its own god, Shouxing, one of three star gods often shown together as Fu Lu Shou: fortune, official success and long life. They are a favourite subject of Chinese decorative art, and Unicode added round signs for fu, lu and shou together, along with happiness, double happiness and wealth.
What does it mean if someone sends it?
A wish for a long life.
It fits best in a birthday greeting, above all for a grandparent or older relative: Chinese families make a big occasion of elders' birthdays, and the round shou is a classic decoration for them. It is warm and respectful, with no established second meaning.
Warm, respectful and auspicious; most at home in an older relative's birthday greeting.
Part of collections
Don't confuse it with
2
Related characters
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Combination ideas
4Worth knowing
- Shouxing, the god of longevity, is pictured as a smiling old man with a huge domed forehead, often holding a peach of immortality.
Questions people ask
2Is 🉢 an emoji?
No. It is a Unicode symbol outside the emoji set, so its look depends on your font, and devices without a suitable font show a missing-character box.
Is 🉢 a religious symbol?
Not strictly. Unicode files it among Chinese folk-religion symbols, where longevity has a god, but the round shou is widely used as a good-luck decoration outside any religious setting.
More like this
12
Collections with 🉢
2
How to type or find 🉢
- Also called
- round shou · tuanshou · round longevity character
- Search it as
- shou · longevity · 寿 · 壽 · long life symbol · chinese birthday symbol
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
🉢\1F262Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.