Check Mark Symbol

The check mark symbol (✓, Unicode U+2713 CHECK MARK) is the tick used to mark something done, correct, or verified. Unicode places it in the Dingbats block next to the bolder ✔ (U+2714 HEAVY CHECK MARK), and with a variation selector ✔️ becomes the check-mark emoji; the green ✅ and the ☑ checkbox are separate characters again. The check mark is distinct from the ✗ ballot X that means the opposite, and from the √ square-root sign that people often press by mistake.

The check mark records a yes, done, or verified decision, and its shape — a short stroke rising into a longer one — likely descends from a hurried letter v (for the Latin veritas, meaning true) or simply from a freehand tick made while scanning a list. In much of the English-speaking world a ✓ means correct and an ✗ means wrong, but that mapping is not universal: in parts of Northern Europe, notably Finland and Sweden, a check mark has traditionally marked an answer as incorrect, with a different mark used for right answers.

Unicode encodes the plain ✓ (U+2713) and heavy ✔ (U+2714) in the Dingbats block, alongside the ballot X marks ✗ (U+2717) and ✘ (U+2718). The familiar green tick is a separate emoji, ✅ (U+2705, WHITE HEAVY CHECK MARK), and the checkbox forms ☑ (U+2611) and ☒ (U+2612) come from the ballot-box characters. A frequent mix-up is the square-root sign √ (U+221A), which looks like a tall check mark but is a mathematical radical — on some Mac keyboard layouts, Option+V even produces √ rather than a check.