Waxing Gibbous Moon Emoji
U+1F314:moon:About Waxing Gibbous Moon 🌔
Waxing Gibbous Moon () is part of the Travel & Places group in Unicode. Added in Unicode E0.6. Type on GitHub and Slack to use it. On Discord it's . Click copy above to grab it, paste it anywhere.
Works in iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Gmail, and every app that supports Unicode.
Often associated with gibbous, moon, space, and 1 more keywords.
Meaning varies across cultures, see cultural notes below.
Scroll down for the full story: meaning, trends, combos, and more.
How it looks
What does it mean?
🌔 is the waxing gibbous moon: more than half illuminated but not yet fully lit, roughly 51% to 99% bright on the right side. Fourth of the eight astronomical phase emojis. It happens between first quarter and full moon, about days 9-14 of the 29.5-day synodic cycle.
'Gibbous' comes from the Latin gibbus, meaning 'hump' or 'hunchbacked,' and refers to the bulging convex shape of the lit portion. It's one of only a handful of Latin-derived words that survived in English exclusively inside astronomy. Outside moon talk, nobody calls anything gibbous.
Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as WAXING GIBBOUS MOON SYMBOL.
Of all eight phases, this one is the least culturally loaded. The new moon has rituals. The full moon has werewolves, tides, and hospital folklore. The crescent has Islam, bedtime, and Instagram. The waxing gibbous is the quiet workhorse phase, the one that does the actual job of getting the moon bright, night after night, without anyone writing songs about it. In astrology, it lands as the 'refinement' phase: your intentions are almost realized, but the details still need polishing.
🌔 is one of the lowest-use moon emojis on social platforms. Most people jump straight from 🌓 (first quarter) to 🌕 (full moon) when tracking phases. When 🌔 does show up, it's usually in moon-phase sequences (🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘), photography captions ('almost full 🌔'), or astrology-adjacent 'patience, we're almost there' posts.
Night-landscape photographers favor this phase: bright enough to light up the land below, but dim enough that stars still appear. If you see 🌔 on an Instagram sunset-to-moon timelapse, that's the photographer tipping their hat to the phase they used as fill light.
🌔 usage breakdown
The Complete Lunar Cycle
| Illumination | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|
| 🌑 New Moon | 0% | Invisible. New beginnings, intentions, void. |
| 🌒 Waxing Crescent | 1-49% | First sliver. Growth starting, hope emerging. |
| 🌓 First Quarter | 50% | Half lit (right). Decision point, action. |
| 🌔 Waxing Gibbous | 51-99% | Almost full. Refinement, patience. |
| 🌕 Full Moon | 100% | Fully lit. Completion, intensity, werewolves. |
| 🌖 Waning Gibbous | 99-51% | Starting to shrink. Gratitude, sharing. |
| 🌗 Last Quarter | 50% | Half lit (left). Release, forgiveness. |
| 🌘 Waning Crescent | 49-1% | Final sliver. Rest, surrender, closure. |
Emoji combos
Origin story
A waxing gibbous moon is one of the easiest phases to see. It rises in the afternoon, crosses the sky at sunset, and stays up past midnight. Even casual sky-watchers catch it without meaning to. It's the phase people often mistake for a full moon a few days early, especially when they see it low on the horizon, where atmospheric refraction makes it look larger.
The word 'gibbous' has been in English astronomical writing since at least the 14th century. Chaucer's astronomical writings, and later almanacs, used it the same way: more than half, less than full, with a convex bulge. The term survived because there's no shorter English equivalent. 'More-than-half moon' would not fit in a calendar.
In astrology, the waxing gibbous is the 'patience and refinement' phase, seven to ten days into the waxing half of the cycle. Moon-magic traditions treat this window as a time to review progress, adjust the plan, and prepare for the full moon's peak energy.
Approved in Unicode 6.0 (October 2010) as WAXING GIBBOUS MOON SYMBOL. It is a sibling to WANING GIBBOUS MOON (🌖), which shows the mirror phase on the descending half of the cycle.
Around the world
Western astrology
The waxing gibbous is the 'refinement' phase. Manifestation and witchy content posts here focus on adjusting goals, noticing what needs polishing, and building momentum toward the full moon.
Amateur astronomy and photography
Night-landscape photographers use this phase to light foregrounds without washing out stars. Moonlit landscape shots are typically exposed a day or two before full moon, when light is strong enough to illuminate the terrain but stars are still visible.
East Asia / lunar festivals
In China and Vietnam, the waxing gibbous plays a supporting role in the week before Mid-Autumn Festival. Families start gathering ingredients for mooncakes; social posts read 'almost Mid-Autumn 🌔'.
The 'refinement and patience' phase. Your intentions are almost realized, but the details still need polishing. Manifestation communities post ritual prompts focused on reviewing progress and adjusting the plan.
Often confused with
Mirror image. 🌔 (waxing gibbous) is lit on the right and growing toward full. 🌖 (waning gibbous) is lit on the left and shrinking from full. Same illumination amount, opposite direction.
Mirror image. 🌔 (waxing gibbous) is lit on the right and growing toward full. 🌖 (waning gibbous) is lit on the left and shrinking from full. Same illumination amount, opposite direction.
Mirror images. 🌔 (waxing gibbous) is lit on the right and growing toward full. 🌖 (waning gibbous) is lit on the left and shrinking from full. Same illumination amount, opposite direction of change.
Caption ideas
Fun facts
- •The word 'gibbous' comes from Latin gibbus, meaning 'hump' or 'hunchbacked.' It's been used in English astronomical writing since at least the 14th century.
- •The waxing gibbous moon rises in the afternoon and sets after midnight. It's one of the few phases visible both during daylight and late at night.
- •The moon's illumination grows roughly 7% per day during waxing phases. A waxing gibbous observed on Monday looks noticeably different by Thursday.
- •Night-landscape photographers often use waxing gibbous because it produces enough moonlight to illuminate terrain while still allowing stars to remain visible.
- •The moon illusion is strongest during gibbous and full phases. When 🌔 rises low on the horizon, our brains read it as much larger than it actually is. Hold a fingernail up to it at the horizon and again an hour later, higher in the sky, and you'll see the size is identical.
- •Waxing gibbous is Mars's favorite moon phase. Rover imaging calibration schedules on both Curiosity and Perseverance often exclude full moon nights because the brightness washes out stars needed for navigation fixes.
Trivia
For developers
- •🌔 is . UTF-8: . HTML entity: .
- •Shortcodes: (Slack, Discord, GitHub).
- •Unicode name: WAXING GIBBOUS MOON SYMBOL. Its waning counterpart is 🌖 at .
From Latin gibbus, meaning 'hump' or 'hunchbacked.' In astronomy, it describes the moon when it's more than half illuminated but less than full, with a bulging convex shape. The word survives mostly in lunar vocabulary.
Not ideal. The moon is bright enough to wash out faint stars. It's a great phase for night-landscape photography (moonlit terrain plus remaining star visibility) but not for deep-sky astronomy. For that, stick to new moon or waxing crescent phases.
See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.
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