Thumbs Down Emoji
Plain disapproval or rejection, the direct opposite of a thumbs up.
Try Thumbs Down emoji
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Meaning & usage
What does the Thumbs Down emoji mean?
Plain disapproval or rejection, the direct opposite of a thumbs up.
Blunt and unsoftened. With no words alongside it, a thumbs down reads as harsher than most people intend.
How to use 👎 naturally
Voting against an idea, or reacting to news you dislike. Blunt without words alongside it.
Hand gestures can be direct and efficient, which makes them useful in quick replies. Their tone varies across cultures and age groups, so a short accompanying phrase can prevent ambiguity.
From standard to slang
The history of 👎
- 2010
First defined as emoji
According to Unicode’s Emoji Versions data, Thumbs Down 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
The mirror of the raised thumb, and much less used. Rejection is a thing people are more reluctant to send than approval.
- Today
How its use evolved
Voting against an idea, or reacting to news you dislike. Blunt without words alongside it.
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.
New pricing page? 👎
Tried the sequel. 👎
Voting 👎 on the 7am start
When to use it
Using 👎 clearly
Voting against an idea, or reacting to news you dislike. Blunt without words alongside it. It lands as thumbs down meaning 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 thumbs down emoji
What does 👎 mean in a text message?
Plain disapproval or rejection, the direct opposite of a thumbs up. Blunt and unsoftened. With no words alongside it, a thumbs down reads as harsher than most people intend.
Is 👎 always positive?
Not always. Its usual readings are thumbs down meaning, 👎 meaning, disapproval emoji, and irony or the relationship between the people can flip any of them.
Why does 👎 look different on another device?
U+1F44E 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 thumbs down 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 thumbs down 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+1F44E | 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 | \1F44E | For the content property. Keep the quotes around the whole value. | |
| JavaScript | \u{1F44E} | A string-literal escape. Needs the u flag inside a regular expression. | |
| URL-encoded | %F0%9F%91%8E | Percent-encoded UTF-8, for query strings and API requests. |
Reference card
Emoji details
- Unicode
- U+1F44E
- Category
- Hands & Gestures
- Also known as
- thumbs down meaning👎 meaningdisapproval emoji
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