Sideways White Left Pointing Index

A typographic pointing hand that marks something beside it.

The sign is called a manicule, from the Latin for “little hand”. For centuries readers drew one in the margin of a manuscript or printed book, finger aimed at the line they wanted to find again; it worked a little like a highlighter for the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Printers turned it into a piece of type, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it became a favourite attention-grabber on posters, handbills and newspaper advertisements, which is why printers nicknamed it the fist. Pointing hands still turn up on signs and in advertising, meaning “pay attention to this”.

In the Unicode name, “white” means the hand is an outline rather than solid black, and “sideways” means it is drawn turned, seen from the side; the older ☜ is usually drawn flat, with cuff and knuckles showing. It belongs to a set of eight sideways hands (left, right, up, down, each in white and black) that came into Unicode 7.0 in 2014 from the Wingdings 2 symbol font, so the character itself is modern even though the idea is centuries old.

What does it mean when someone sends 🖘?

They are pointing at something to the left: usually what they just said.

In a message it works like 👈 in a bookish costume. Placed after a phrase it tells you to look back at those words; at the start of a line it can point at the previous message or at a quoted item. It has no mood of its own, so the tone comes from the words around it. Because it is rendered by the font, the sender may have seen a crisp little hand while you see a tiny grey glyph or an empty box; if the target matters, say it in words.