Skull and crossbones Emoji

Smileys

A stark white human skull resting atop two crossed femurs. This classic emblem has long served as a universal sign for danger, poison, or lethal contents.

Usage Context

Widely used to denote something life-threatening, toxic, or strictly off-limits. In modern digital chatter, it is frequently used to express that someone is 'dying' of laughter, serving as a darker, edgier alternative to 😂 or 💀.

History

Rooted in 17th-century maritime history, the design—famously known as the Jolly Roger—was flown by pirate ships to intimidate merchant vessels. It transitioned into a standard industrial warning icon in the early 20th century to mark chemical hazards before being codified into Unicode 1.1 in 1993.

Details

Glyph

☠

Unicode

U+2620

Shortcode

:emoji_u2620:

HTML Entity

☠

Specifications

Vendor Google

Category Smileys

Subcategory face-negative

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