Dove Emoji

A white dove in flight, often shown carrying an olive branch. 🕊️ is one of the most symbolically loaded emojis in the entire Unicode set. Three meanings share it and rarely overlap: peace, mourning, and the Holy Spirit. The Unicode name itself, "DOVE OF PEACE," is unusually editorial, most emojis get named for the object, this one gets named for what it means.

The peace reading comes from two converging sources. First, the Book of Genesis: Noah sends a dove from the ark, and it returns with a fresh olive leaf, proving the flood is ending. That single image has carried peace symbolism for roughly 3,000 years across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Second, Pablo Picasso's 1949 lithograph for the Paris Peace Conference. Picasso's dove was based on a pigeon Henri Matisse had given him. The image became the logo of the World Peace Council and appeared on posters, stamps, and banners worldwide. Modern anti-war imagery is largely Picasso's dove filtered through Genesis.

The mourning reading is post-Picasso and almost entirely internet-era. Around the mid-2010s, 🕊️ became the default memorial emoji on Instagram, then Twitter, then TikTok. "Fly high 🕊️" or "Rest easy 🕊️" is now the standard shorthand for someone who has passed away, to the point that 🕊️ alone in a reply can convey condolences without a word. Funeral.com and TIME's mourning-etiquette piece both mark 🕊️ as part of the core grief-emoji cluster alongside 🤍, 🕯️, and 🪽.

The Holy Spirit reading is specifically Christian. In all four Gospels, the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus at his baptism "like a dove." Church iconography adopted this image, and 🕊️ still carries it for religious users posting about baptism, confirmation, or Pentecost.

🕊️ was approved in Unicode 7.0 (2014) with the official name DOVE OF PEACE, one of very few emojis whose Unicode name encodes a meaning rather than an object.

🕊️ has three primary uses, each emotionally distinct. You rarely need to guess which one you're seeing.

Mourning. Probably the most common use on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. "RIP 🕊️," "Fly high 🕊️," or just 🕊️ under a tribute photo is the default grief pattern. It's become so standard that TIME described 🕊️ in 2025 as part of the "unspoken etiquette of mourning on social media". Dropping 🕊️ in a reply to sad news is the emoji version of "my condolences."

Peace and diplomacy. Anti-war posts, calls for ceasefire, nonviolence advocacy. 🕊️ spiked in volume around major conflicts, notably the war in Ukraine (2022+) and the Israel-Hamas war (2023+), as users in every language adopted 🕊️ as a universal plea. The 🕊️🫒 combo (dove + olive branch) is specifically peace-movement coded.

Spirituality. Christian content uses 🕊️ for the Holy Spirit, baptisms, and Pentecost. Angel-sign content uses it alongside 🪽 and 🪶. New-age accounts use it for general peaceful energy.

A small fourth use: the mourning dove species. The bird's real, lonely call ("coo-ah, coo, coo, coo") shows up in nature content, which accidentally reinforces the grief meaning.

🕊️ is neither flirty nor friendly in the usual sense, it's a solemn emoji. Using it casually in a banter thread reads as off or accidentally funny. It carries weight.

The dove's symbolism predates Christianity by millennia. In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, doves were sacred to the goddess Ishtar, who later became Astarte and then Aphrodite in the Greek tradition. The love-goddess association is why doves still appear on wedding cakes, Valentine's cards, and Disney princess films.

The Genesis flood narrative is the single most important source for modern dove symbolism. Noah sends out a raven first (it doesn't return), then a dove (which comes back with nothing), then the dove a second time (it returns with a fresh olive leaf, proving the flood is ending), then a third time (it doesn't return, suggesting it has found land). The second dove, with the olive leaf in its beak, became the Western world's most enduring peace image.

In Christianity, the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus at his baptism "like a dove" in all four Gospels (Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, John 1:32). Church iconography made the dove the default visual symbol of the Holy Spirit, seen in altarpieces, baptismal fonts, and Pentecost art.

Picasso's 1949 lithograph, created for the Paris Peace Conference, modernized the symbol. The drawing was based on a pigeon given to Picasso by Henri Matisse, and it was adopted by the World Peace Council as their logo. Anti-nuclear protests, civil rights marches, and anti-Vietnam movements all used variants of Picasso's dove. The image was so associated with communist-aligned peace activism during the Cold War that some Western media outlets briefly treated it with suspicion.

The political "hawks and doves" terminology dates to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when journalists split Kennedy's advisors into "hawks" (advocating military action) and "doves" (advocating diplomacy). The terms caught on during the Vietnam War and are still standard in political coverage today.

Approved in Unicode 7.0 (June 2014) as U+1F54AU+1F54A DOVE OF PEACE. One of very few emojis with an editorial name encoding its meaning rather than only describing the object. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015. Code point requires U+FE0FU+FE0F (variation selector 16) for reliable emoji presentation across platforms.

The dove is remarkably consistent as a peace symbol across cultures, but the specific story behind it shifts. In Christianity, the dove represents the Holy Spirit. In Judaism, it's the dove of Noah and divine mercy. In Islam, doves are associated with the Prophet Muhammad, who was reportedly protected at the Cave of Thawr by a pair of doves and a spider that hid him from pursuers. In the ancient Near East, doves were sacred to Ishtar and Aphrodite (love, not peace). In secular modern contexts, the dove is anti-war.

In East Asian contexts, the dove as peace symbol is more recent, largely adopted through UN and Cold-War-era peace imagery. Traditional Chinese and Japanese art more often used cranes for longevity and peace, and pigeons for messenger-bird symbolism. Modern Chinese and Japanese users on global platforms still use 🕊️ with the same grief and peace meanings as Western users.

• •Picasso's 1949 dove lithograph was based on a pigeon given to him by Henri Matisse. It became the logo of the World Peace Council and the most reproduced peace image of the 20th century.
• •White doves released at weddings and funerals are trained white homing pigeons, not true doves. They fly back home after the ceremony.
• •The dove and olive branch appear on dozens of peace-organization logos worldwide. The UN flag uses olive branches but not a dove.
• •The mourning dove's coo is one of the most commonly heard bird sounds in North America. Its melancholy tone is why the bird earned the name 'mourning' dove, which accidentally reinforces 🕊️'s grief meaning.
• •Prince's 'When Doves Cry' (1984) was his first Billboard Hot 100 number-one and the year's top-selling single. The doves represent two lovers mourning a crumbling relationship.
• •Unicode 7.0 named the emoji "DOVE OF PEACE," one of only a handful of emojis whose official name encodes a meaning rather than just the object. Most are named for the object alone.
• •The hawks-and-doves political metaphor entered common US use through a 1962 account of Kennedy's advisors during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• •In Islamic tradition, a pair of doves and a spider are said to have saved the Prophet Muhammad by concealing him in the Cave of Thawr from pursuers during the Hijra.

• •Picasso's Dove (1949) is the most reproduced peace image of the 20th century, created for the Paris Peace Conference and adopted as the logo of the World Peace Council.
• •The 'hawks and doves' political dichotomy entered mainstream US discourse during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and became central vocabulary during the Vietnam War. Still standard in foreign-policy coverage.
• •Prince's 'When Doves Cry' (1984) was his first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single and the year's biggest-selling single. The crying doves represent two lovers mourning a crumbling relationship.
• •John Woo's films are famous for doves flying through action sequences, a visual motif symbolizing the peace his violent characters are always just failing to achieve. Many directors have copied this.
• •The UN emblem doesn't actually feature a dove (olive branches yes, doves no), but doves appear on the emblems of dozens of peace organizations worldwide.

• •Code point: U+1F54AU+1F54A + U+FE0FU+FE0F (variation selector). Unicode name: DOVE OF PEACE.
• •Common shortcodes: :dove::dove: or :dove_of_peace::dove_of_peace: on Slack, Discord, GitHub.
• •The FE0F variation selector ensures emoji presentation (rather than text) on all platforms.
• •Unicode 7.0 (2014). Device support is universal on any hardware newer than 2015.

See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.