✋Raised Hand Emoji
Generally, it means “stop” or “wait a second. ” People use it to get someone’s attention in a text.
The ✋ emoji shows a hand raised, palm up.
- Unicode
- U+270B
- Released
- 2010
- Shortcode
- :hand:
- Skin tones
- Yes
What does the ✋ Raised Hand emoji mean?
People search for this character under a lot of different names, and the ones we have collected number 5.
Raised Hand emoji on iPhone, Android, WhatsApp and X
Same code on both ends, different drawing on each screen — here is the raised hand as 9 vendors ship it.
iPhone, iPad, macOS
Android, Gmail, Chrome
X, Discord, Twemoji apps
Facebook, Messenger
Open-source, design systems
Galaxy, One UI
Windows, Teams, Fluent
WhatsApp on Android
Slack, Discord themes
See the whole set the way each system draws it — iPhone emojis, Android emojis, WhatsApp emojis and Discord emojis.
Raised Hand emoji skin tones
✋ supports all five Fitzpatrick skin tone modifiers. Each one is a separate character sequence — tap any to copy it.
Raised Hand emoji copy and paste
Everything here is the same character in different notation — including the shortcode chat apps know it by, :hand:.
In your code
Escapes for the languages people actually paste this into. Every one of them produces the same character, and that character is U+270B.
How to type the ✋ Raised Hand emoji
Where the emoji key lives on each system — and the codes for when there is no picker at all.
Raised Hand emoji PNG and SVG
Transparent PNG and SVG for thumbnails, decks and design files — one file per vendor, which makes 9. Artwork belongs to whoever drew it, so check the licence before commercial use.
Apple
Google
Twitter / X
Raised Hand emoji combinations
Ready-made combos built around raised hand for bios, captions and comments. Tap to copy.
Want two emojis fused into one sticker instead of set side by side? Emoji Kitchen does that with ✋, and there are more ready-made pairs in emoji combinations and aesthetic emoji combos.
What ✋ means from a girl or a guy
Who sent the raised hand and what came before it change the reading more than the emoji itself does.
What ✋ means in other countries
Reads as “stop,” a raised hand in class, or a high-five — except in Greece, where the gesture itself is an insult.
Used for “stop,” “wait,” volunteering, or a high-five — entirely neutral.
An open palm pushed toward someone (the moutza) is a traditional insult echoing this gesture.
Before you send it: Use freely for “stop” or agreement; avoid aiming it at one specific person in Greek-speaking chats.
What ✋ means on TikTok, WhatsApp and Discord
Chat apps do not change U+270B, they change what it looks like and what people take it to mean.
✋ vs 👋 — what is the difference?
Two emojis that get mixed up constantly. They are different characters with different names.
Unicode name: Raised Hand
Code: U+270B · added 2010
Shortcode: :hand:
Generally, it means “stop” or “wait a second.
Unicode name: Waving Hand
Code: U+1F44B · added 2010
Shortcode: :wave:
Generally, 👋 means “hello” or “goodbye.
Where the ✋ Raised Hand emoji came from
This one is older than Unicode emoji: Japanese carriers were drawing it on their handsets years before the standard existed, which it finally joined in 2010.
Same character every time — U+270B never changed. Only the drawing did, and only because each vendor redraws its own set. Someone on an older phone still sees the older picture.
Long before Unicode had emoji, Japanese carriers shipped their own picture sets.
✋ existed there as
NTT DoCoMo E695, KDDI au E5A7, SoftBank E012.
Those codes are why it survived into the standard at all — Unicode had to keep Japanese messages readable.
Raised Hand was approved as U+270B and shipped in Emoji 0.6 (2010). Emoji 0.6 is the original 2010 batch that came over from the Japanese sets.
Every vendor keeps its own artwork, so ✋ is redrawn by Apple, Google, Twitter / X, Facebook, OpenMoji, Samsung, Microsoft, WhatsApp, JoyPixels. The character you send never changes — only the picture does.