Japanese “secret” button Emoji

Symbols

A red circle containing the white Japanese kanji character 'hi' (秘), which translates to 'secret' or 'hidden.' The design mimics the style of rubber stamps used in Japanese offices to mark confidential documents.

Usage Context

Used to signal that a message is private, confidential, or an insider tip. It is frequently employed in casual conversation to tease a piece of gossip or a 'secret' project, often paired with the 🤫 shushing face or the 🤐 zipper-mouth face to emphasize discretion.

History

This symbol was added to the Unicode standard in 2010. It originates from the traditional Japanese practice of using 'hanko' or seal stamps to designate sensitivity levels on business correspondence, a system that transitioned directly into early mobile messaging shorthand.

Details

Glyph

㊙

Unicode

U+3299

Shortcode

:emoji_u3299:

HTML Entity

㊙

Specifications

Vendor Google

Category Symbols

Subcategory alphanum

Unicode Version 6.0

Emoji Version 1.0

License CC-BY 4.0

Google Noto License

Emoji graphics by Twitter/X, licensed under CC-BY 4.0

Noto Color Emoji graphics are copyrighted by Google Inc. and licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Font files may also be subject to the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.

Apache 2.0 SIL OFL 1.1 Noto Repository