Kebab menu (⋮)
Three dots stacked in a column are a “more” button, sometimes called a kebab menu: it opens a menu of further options.
Easily confused with
How to read it
Unicode names the character ⋮ VERTICAL ELLIPSIS, and Google’s Material icon set names the icon more_vert. The Australian eSafety Commissioner’s Be Connected guide to common technology icons labels it “More menu”, the same label it gives the three dots in a row.
Also searched as: ⋮, kebab menu, three dots vertical, three vertical dots.
Where the name comes from
“Kebab” is a nickname, from the dots’ likeness to pieces of food on a skewer. The linguist Arnold Zwicky wrote in 2018 about a cartoon by Michael Babich, made for the UX/UI Design community on Google+, that likens the shapes of menu icons to kinds of food: a hamburger, a döner kebab, a bento box, a kebab on a stick and meatballs.
Look-alikes
The same three dots in a row are the Meatballs menu (⋯), also a “more” button. Three lines rather than dots are the Hamburger menu (☰), which Be Connected labels “Menu”.
Read next
- Next in Interface iconsMeatballs menu (⋯)Three dots in a row are a “more” button, sometimes called a meatballs menu: it opens further options or commands.
- The same shape in Asian flagsFlag of IndiaThree equal bands of saffron, white and green, with a navy blue wheel of 24 spokes, the Ashoka Chakra, in the centre. The Flag Code of India quotes Dr S. Radhakrishnan’s explanation to the Constituent Assembly in 1947: saffron for renunciation, white for light and the path of truth, green for the relation to the soil, and the wheel for the law of dharma and for motion.
More interface icons
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles.
Sources
- Mathematical Operators, Range: 2200–22FF (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Unicode Consortium, U+22EE
- Material Icons codepoints (MaterialIcons-Regular.codepoints), Google Material Design icons, font/MaterialIcons-Regular.codepoints, Google (material-design-icons repository on GitHub), more_vert, more_horiz
- Which icon is that? (Be Connected visual glossary of icons), Be Connected guide to common technology icons, poster version 9, eSafety Commissioner, Australian Government, Poster labels (icons noted in NOTES.md)
- Know Your Menu, Arnold Zwicky, 1 April 2018, Arnold Zwicky’s Blog
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 14, 2026. How we research
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