Biohazard Emoji
The three-ring warning for biological hazards, designed in 1966 to be memorable and meaningless until taught.
Try Biohazard emoji
Edit the text, then change the size.
Meaning & usage
What does the Biohazard emoji mean?
The three-ring warning for biological hazards, designed in 1966 to be memorable and meaningless until taught.
Clinical and slightly sinister. It is more specific than ☢️ and reads as contamination rather than danger, which is why it turns up in jokes about neglected fridges and shared kitchens.
How to use ☣️ naturally
Laboratory and safety references, and jokes about something contaminated.
Reaction symbols work like visual emphasis: they reinforce a word, rate an idea or replace a short response. Repetition normally increases intensity, but it can also make a message feel more performative.
From standard to slang
The history of ☣️
- 2015
First defined as emoji
According to Unicode’s Emoji Versions data, Biohazard was first defined as emoji in Emoji 1.0, dated 2015. The first release where Unicode versioned the emoji set as a standard in its own right.
- Before the keyboard
Its visual roots
The three interlocking rings designed by Dow in 1966. The brief was a symbol that was memorable and meaningless until taught, so it could not be mistaken for anything.
- Today
How its use evolved
Laboratory and safety references, and jokes about something contaminated.
Dates follow Unicode’s official Emoji Versions chart. Versions before Emoji 1.0 are labelled retrospectively. See the history of emoji.
In conversation
Examples of ☣️ in messages
These examples show the emoji in complete messages, where the words make its intended tone easier to read.
Nobody has opened this container since March ☣️
The lab tour was genuinely fascinating ☣️
Someone left milk in the meeting room over the weekend ☣️
When to use it
Using ☣️ clearly
Laboratory and safety references, and jokes about something contaminated. It lands as biohazard emoji or ☣️ meaning when the rest of the message supports that reading, and it is the surrounding words that do the deciding — so in a sensitive, professional or cross-cultural conversation, say the thing outright as well.
Common questions
About the biohazard emoji
What does ☣️ mean in a text message?
The three-ring warning for biological hazards, designed in 1966 to be memorable and meaningless until taught. Clinical and slightly sinister. It is more specific than ☢️ and reads as contamination rather than danger, which is why it turns up in jokes about neglected fridges and shared kitchens.
Is ☣️ always positive?
Not always. Its usual readings are biohazard emoji, ☣️ meaning, biohazard symbol, and irony or the relationship between the people can flip any of them.
Why does ☣️ look different on another device?
U+2623 U+FE0F identifies the emoji; the picture is a font, drawn separately by Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung. Only the artwork changes, never the character.
How do I copy and paste the biohazard emoji?
Use the copy button at the top of this page. ☣️ is a character, not an image, so it pastes into messages, captions and filenames as ordinary text.
When was the biohazard emoji introduced?
Unicode’s Emoji Versions data first records ☣️ as emoji in Emoji 1.0, dated 2015. Early emoji version numbers can be retrospective, so this date describes its place in the standardised emoji set rather than the first-ever appearance of the underlying symbol.
Easily confused
☣️ compared with similar emoji
These sit close enough in meaning that people reach for the wrong one. Here is what actually separates them.
Biohazard or Radioactive?
☣️ is contamination — something alive that should not be. ☢️ is invisible radiation, which is why one suits a neglected fridge and the other does not.
For developers
☣️ in code
Every value below is generated from the character itself, so it stays correct even where a file encoding cannot hold the emoji directly.
| Format | Value | When to use it | Copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode | U+2623 U+FE0F | The standard reference. Use it to search a character map or a spec. | |
| HTML (hex) | ☣️ | For HTML and XML. Safe in files that are not saved as UTF-8. | |
| HTML (decimal) | ☣️ | The same reference in decimal. Both render identically. | |
| CSS | \2623 \FE0F | For the content property. Keep the quotes around the whole value. | |
| JavaScript | \u{2623}\u{FE0F} | A string-literal escape. Needs the u flag inside a regular expression. | |
| URL-encoded | %E2%98%A3%EF%B8%8F | Percent-encoded UTF-8, for query strings and API requests. |
Reference card
Emoji details
- Unicode
- U+2623 U+FE0F
- Category
- Symbols & Reactions
- Also known as
- biohazard emoji☣️ meaningbiohazard symbol
Keep browsing