What ☯ means, its ancient roots, and how to type it — click to copy.
Click to copy · U+262F
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Character | ☯ |
| Unicode code point | U+262F |
| Unicode name | YIN YANG |
| Unicode block | Miscellaneous Symbols |
| Category | Special character |
| Formal name | Taijitu |
The yin-yang concept originates in ancient Chinese cosmology and became central to Taoist philosophy: the idea that seemingly opposing forces — dark and light, passive and active, feminine and masculine — aren't really in conflict, but complementary halves of a single whole, each containing a "seed" of the other. That seed is represented by the small dot of the opposite color nested inside each half of the symbol.
The classic circular swirl design, formally called a taijitu, reached its familiar modern form during the Song Dynasty, roughly the 11th–12th century CE, though the underlying philosophical concept it illustrates is far older. It remains one of the most recognized symbols from Chinese philosophy anywhere in the world today.
| Platform | Works? |
|---|---|
| Instagram bio / caption | Yes |
| Discord | Yes |
| TikTok display name | Yes |
| Yes | |
| Roblox / PlayStation / Xbox username | No — alphanumeric only |
| Method | Input |
|---|---|
| Windows (Word) | Type 262F then press Alt+X |
| Mac | No dedicated combo — Character Viewer or copy from this page |
| HTML entity | ☯ (no short named entity) |
| CSS content | content: "\262F" |
☯ pairs with the eight I Ching trigrams and the yin/yang line monograms and digrams in the East Asian Spiritual Symbols section of the religious symbols library.
Browse Religious Symbols →It represents the idea, central to Chinese philosophy and Taoism, that seemingly opposite forces — dark and light, passive and active, feminine and masculine — are actually complementary and interconnected. The small dot of each color inside the opposite half shows that each force contains a "seed" of the other.
The underlying yin-yang philosophical concept traces back to ancient Chinese cosmology, but the classic circular swirl design (called a taijitu) in its modern recognizable form was popularized during the Song Dynasty, roughly the 11th–12th century CE.
It falls outside the simple four-digit Windows Alt-code range. Use the Alt+X hex method in Word (type 262F, then press Alt+X), the Character Map, or copy it directly from a reference page. In HTML, use ☯ — there's no short named entity.