Folded hands 🙏

How to read it

Unicode named it PERSON WITH FOLDED HANDS (U+1F64F), and its chart notes it can indicate sorrow or regret, or pleading, praying, bowing or thanking. Dictionary.com lists gratitude, spirituality, hopefulness and pleading. In Japanese and some other Asian cultures, it says, pressing the hands together means please, thank you and I’m sorry; the West uses the emoji more for prayer.

Also searched as: 🙏, high five emoji, namaste emoji, please emoji, prayer hands, praying hands emoji, thank you emoji.

Different readings by culture

Emojipedia notes that many Japanese people make the gesture before a meal while saying itadakimasu, and that many in Southeast Asian religions and cultures fold their hands as a respectful greeting, as in the Hindu namaste or the Buddhist añjali mudra. Anadolu Agency adds that in South Asia the emoji is also used to ask for pardon or forgiveness.

Prayer or a high five?

Emojipedia traces the high-five reading to Twitter, where it spread on 22 July 2013, helped by Apple’s design of the time, which showed a golden burst of light around the fingertips. The earlier Japanese designs show what was meant: au by KDDI’s 2003 emoji is a person with hands folded, head bowed and eyes closed. Keith Broni of Emojipedia told Anadolu Agency, “It was intended to be folded hands of an individual, and not a high five.” Dictionary.com points to the thumbs: in prayer they sit on the same side, and in a high five they would be on opposite sides.