The minus emoji is the internet’s universal “take it down a notch” button. Think subtraction in math, but also subtracting drama, budget lines, or enthusiasm for Monday. It’s perfect for rating cons, knocking off points, or signaling a vibe drop: “Respect ➖ after that take.” In texts and memes, it doubles as a way to say less, reduce, or de-escalate—like turning the volume down on chaos.
You’ll spot it in jokes about budgets (income ➖ rent = ramen), gym logs (cookies ➖ willpower), or mock scoreboards (minus 10 points to Gryffindor). It pairs nicely with ➕ for pros-and-cons lists, or as a sassy reaction when something is not serving you: “Negativity ➖ from my life.” People sometimes confuse it with a hyphen, but this is the chunky math sign, not punctuation. It’s also handy in minimalist aesthetics: less is more, literally.
On Apple/iOS, the minus shows up as a bold, white horizontal bar centered on a rounded blue square with a soft gradient and a subtle shine—clean, geometric, and straight-on. It matches the glossy set with ➕, ✖️, and ➗, so your math mood board stays coordinated. iPhone users may also think of the red circular “remove” UI button in Edit mode, which isn’t the emoji, but gives the same “take away” energy.
Definition
We can finally start using these plus and minus signs in emoji conversations! Excite!
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Emoji History The emoji code/ image log of changes.
This emoji first appeared in OSX / iOS after the iOS 5 update.
Emoji General Information
Twitter Emoji Popularity (Rank)
619 of 2393
Apple/iOS Picture
Google Android Picture
Google Hangouts Picture
Twitter.com Picture
LG Emoji Picture
Samsung Emoji Picture
Phantom Open Emoji Picture
Not created yet
ASCII Conversion
"Short Code" Name
:heavy_minus_sign:
Keywords
Previous Names:
Heavy Minus Sign
Unicode Category Information
Unicode Category
Dingbats
Unicode Range
2700–27BF
Unicode Subcategory
Heavy Variants of Arithmetic Symbols
Proposed Unicode Information & Notes
Unicode Category
Abstract Concepts
Unicode Subcategory
Arithmetic Symbols
Names & Annotations
HEAVY MINUS SIGN Temporary Notes: Not unified with CIRCLED MINUS
Symbol Information
U+2796 proposed
Proposal Identifier
e-B52
Character Mapping/Crosswalk Notes
DoCoMo
[－]
KDDI
#27 マイナス 「mainasu」 U+E53D SJIS-F759 JIS-773A
Softbank
[－]
Emoji Character Encoding Data
Emoji Code Version
iOS 5 - Current
UTF-8 Unicode Character(s)
➖
UTF-8 Character Count
1
Character(s) In Input
AppleColorEmoji Font (available in OSX/iOS)
➖
Decimal HTML Entity
➖
Hexadecimal HTML Entity
➖
Hex Code Point(s)
2796
Formal Unicode Notation
U+2796
Decimal Code Point(s)
10134
UTF-8 Hex (C Syntax)
0xE2 0x9E 0x96
UTF-8 Hex Bytes
E2 9E 96
UTF-8 Octal Bytes
342 236 226
UTF-16 Hex (C Syntax)
0x2796
UTF-16 Hex
2796
UTF-16 Dec
10134
UTF-32 Hex (C Syntax)
0x00002796
UTF-32 Hex
2796
UTF-32 Dec
10134
Python Src
u"\u2796"
PHP Src
"\xe2\x9e\x96"
C/C++/Java Src
"\u2796"
Emoji Character Encoding Data (equivalent or similiar)
