what does this symbol mean?

Gestures and body language

What hand gestures mean, and how their meaning changes from one country or generation to the next.

Hand gestures 13 symbols

What common hand gestures and their emoji mean, and where the same gesture means something else.

About gestures and body language

Gestures and body language are signs made with the body instead of drawn: a raised thumb, two fingers in a V, fingers flicked from under the chin. Like any symbol they mean what the people around them take them to mean, and the people change from one border to the next. Desmond Morris, who mapped European gestures in Manwatching (1977), found that the chin flick is an insult in France and northern Italy but only means “no” in southern Italy, a change that happens between Rome and Naples. Roger Axtell told NPR in 2006 that the OK sign, recognised by 98 per cent of Americans, means money in Japan and zero in the south of France.

Hand gestures

The hand gestures collection gives the meanings of thirteen gestures, and of their emoji where they have one, country by country and, for 👍, generation by generation. Each page names who reads a gesture which way, and where two sources disagree it gives both. For 👍, a survey by Marina Zhukova and Susan Herring found Gen Z rating messages with a thumbs up as less friendly than older generations did. It includes the Italian gestures that Frederick Elworthy described in 1895, from the horned hand to the fig, and the gestures that changed meaning as they travelled, such as the V sign, which Japanese media trace into East Asian photos through a Konica camera advertisement.

More signals made with the body

Drivers and cyclists signal turns and stops with an arm, as state vehicle codes define: see driving and cycling hand signals. A cat says how it feels with its tail, ears and eyes: see cat body language.

Sources

  1. Regional signals, from Manwatching, Desmond Morris, Manwatching (1977), as reproduced for reading practice, UEFAP (Using English for Academic Purposes), Regional signals
  2. Justice Scalia’s Under-the-Chin Gesture, Madeleine Brand with Roger Axtell, Day to Day, 30 March 2006, NPR, transcript
  3. Benign or Toxic? Differences in Emoji Interpretation by Gender, Generation, and Emoji Type, Marina Zhukova and Susan C. Herring, Language@Internet (in press, 2024), authors’ copy, Indiana University, results
  4. V-Sign: Why East Asians Make Peace Signs in Photos, Time, 4 August 2014 (Wayback Machine copy), Time, article
  5. The Evil Eye (Elworthy, 1895), Frederick Thomas Elworthy, 1895, John Murray, ch. VII

Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research