Meatballs menu (⋯)
Three dots in a row are a “more” button, sometimes called a meatballs menu: it opens further options or commands.
Easily confused with
How to read it
Unicode’s character is ⋯ MIDLINE HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS, and Google’s Material icon set names the icon more_horiz. In Microsoft’s design guidance for Windows apps, the command bar’s “see more” button is an ellipsis: pressing it shows the labels of the main commands and opens the overflow menu, which holds the secondary commands. The Australian eSafety Commissioner’s Be Connected icon guide labels it “More menu”, as it does the three dots in a column.
Also searched as: meatballs menu, more options icon, three dots menu, three horizontal dots.
Where the name comes from
“Meatballs” is a nickname. The linguist Arnold Zwicky wrote in 2018 about a cartoon by Michael Babich, made for the UX/UI Design community on Google+, that likens menu icons to foods, among them a kebab on a stick and meatballs.
Look-alikes
The same dots stacked in a column are the Kebab menu (⋮). In text, three dots on the baseline are the punctuation mark called the ellipsis (…), which Unicode encodes as a separate character, U+2026 HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS.
Read next
- Next in Interface iconsBento menuA three-by-three grid of squares or dots is an app launcher, sometimes called a bento menu: it opens a panel of the company’s other apps.
- The same shape in Emoji meaningsSaluting face 🫡A face giving a salute. People use it for respect, for “yes, sir” when accepting a task, and just as often sarcastically, to put on a show of obedience or to sign off.
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, U+22EF
- Material Icons codepoints (MaterialIcons-Regular.codepoints), Google Material Design icons, font/MaterialIcons-Regular.codepoints, Google (material-design-icons repository on GitHub), more_horiz
- Command bar (Windows apps), Windows app development, design guidance, Microsoft Learn
- 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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