Where the peace symbol comes from
British designer Gerald Holtom created the symbol in 1958 for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and its first march to Aldermaston, England. He combined the flag-semaphore signals for the letters N and D, for “nuclear disarmament,” inside a circle.
In the US, the sign spread through the antiwar movement of the 1960s and became a lasting symbol of peace and of the counterculture era. Today it shows up on T-shirts, posters, tattoos and protest signs, and as a friendly sign-off in messages and social media bios.
☮ vs. ☮️, ✌ and 🕊
- ☮ text style vs. ☮️ emoji style: it is the same Unicode character. Adding an invisible variation selector (U+FE0F) asks devices to show the colorful emoji version; without it, many apps show a plain glyph that follows your text color. Copy whichever you need from this page.
- ✌ (victory hand): the two-finger V sign, widely read as “peace” in the US since the 1960s. As an emoji, ✌️ is common in casual messages and photo captions.
- 🕊 (dove): the dove of peace, an older symbol from religious and classical art, often shown with an olive branch.
A travel note: the two-finger V sign is friendly with the palm facing out, but in the UK, Ireland and Australia, the same gesture with the palm facing inward is an insult.
Typing ☮ on phones and computers
- iPhone and Android: search “peace” in the emoji keyboard to get ☮️.
- Mac: press Control+Command+Space to open the emoji and symbol picker and search “peace.” On newer keyboards, the Globe key can open it too.
- Windows: press Windows key + period and search “peace” in the emoji panel.
- Word: use the Alt+X code from the table above; the result takes the text style of your font.
- HTML: paste ☮ directly, and add the variation selector U+FE0F after it if you want the emoji style.
Frequently asked questions
How do I type the peace sign?
Copy it from this page. On phones and in the Windows and Mac emoji pickers, search “peace.”
Who designed the peace symbol?
Gerald Holtom, in 1958, for Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
What do the lines in the peace sign mean?
They combine the flag-semaphore letters N and D, for “nuclear disarmament.”
Why does ☮ look different on my phone?
Phones often show the colorful emoji version. On computers, the same character may appear as a plain text symbol.
Unicode data: Unicode Character Database 18.0.0 (unicode.org).