What ☓ means
A saltire is a diagonal cross; its setting gives it meaning. In heraldry, the system of emblems on coats of arms and flags, it is two diagonal bands crossing. On Scotland’s flag it represents St Andrew and Scottish identity; by itself in a message, ☓ does not identify a specific flag or tradition.
The English name saltire came through Old French from a word for a crossed frame or stirrup. The geometric form was not created as a Christian sign; over time it gained religious, national, dynastic, and military meanings.
How did the saltire become St Andrew’s cross?
Its link to St Andrew came later. Early accounts of Andrew’s death describe an upright cross. Images showing him on an X-shaped cross appear in the tenth century, and the saltire became his established heraldic attribute in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Scotland used the saltire as a national emblem in 1286; in 1385 Scottish soldiers were ordered to wear a white St Andrew’s cross. Similar diagonal crosses later appeared in Burgundian, Habsburg Spanish, and Union flags, each for different dynastic or political reasons.
In a flag or coat of arms it reads as a deliberate emblem; alone in a message, it is ambiguous.
A bare ☓ does not identify Scotland; that reading comes from the flag’s white cross on blue.
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readingsDon't confuse it with
3Questions people ask
2Can I use ☓ to represent Scotland?
Not on its own. Scotland’s flag uses a white saltire on a blue field; the bare character does not include those colors or the flag’s layout.
Why does ☓ look different in different fonts?
It can. ☓ is a text character drawn by the reader’s font, so stroke width, spacing, and symmetry can vary without changing the character.
How to type ☓
☓\2613Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.