Try Cross Mark emoji
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Meaning & usage
What does the Cross Mark emoji mean?
Wrong, cancelled or not allowed.
A strong visual “no,” error or cancellation. It can look severe in conversation, so it works best for instructions, comparisons and unambiguous corrections.
How to use ❌ naturally
Pairs with ✅ in do/don't lists.
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 ❌
- 2010
First defined as emoji
According to Unicode’s Emoji Versions data, Cross Mark was first defined as emoji in Emoji 0.6, dated 2010. That label is retrospective: Unicode applied it later to the early mobile core it inherited from the Japanese carriers.
- Before the keyboard
Its visual roots
A red saltire. It is drawn as a hand-marked cross rather than a multiplication sign, and ✖️ exists separately for the arithmetic operator.
- Today
How its use evolved
Pairs with ✅ in do/don't lists.
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.
Do not share your password ❌
That answer is incorrect ❌
Today’s session is cancelled ❌
When to use it
Using ❌ clearly
Pairs with ✅ in do/don't lists. It lands as no or wrong 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 cross mark emoji
What does ❌ mean in a text message?
Wrong, cancelled or not allowed. A strong visual “no,” error or cancellation. It can look severe in conversation, so it works best for instructions, comparisons and unambiguous corrections.
Is ❌ always positive?
Not always. Its usual readings are no, wrong, cancel, and irony or the relationship between the people can flip any of them.
Why does ❌ look different on another device?
U+274C 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 cross mark 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 cross mark emoji introduced?
Unicode’s Emoji Versions data first records ❌ as emoji in Emoji 0.6, dated 2010. 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.
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+274C | 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 | \274C | For the content property. Keep the quotes around the whole value. | |
| JavaScript | \u{274C} | A string-literal escape. Needs the u flag inside a regular expression. | |
| URL-encoded | %E2%9D%8C | Percent-encoded UTF-8, for query strings and API requests. |
Reference card
Emoji details
- Unicode
- U+274C
- Category
- Symbols & Reactions
- Also known as
- nowrongcancel
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