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Glyph for U+2624
Source: Noto Sans Symbols

U+2624 Caduceus

U+2624 was added in Unicode version 1.1 in 1993. It belongs to the block U+2600 to U+26FF Miscellaneous Symbols in the U+0000 to U+FFFF Basic Multilingual Plane.

This character is a Other Symbol and is commonly used, that is, in no specific script.

The glyph is not a composition. It has no designated width in East Asian texts. In bidirectional text it acts as Other Neutral. When changing direction it is not mirrored. The word that U+2624 forms with similar adjacent characters prevents a line break inside it.

The Wikipedia has the following information about this codepoint:

The caduceus (☤; ; Latin: cādūceus, from Greek: κηρύκειον kērū́keion "herald's wand, or staff") is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was borne by other heralds like Iris, the messenger of Hera. The short staff is entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. In Roman iconography, it was depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the gods.

Some accounts assert that the oldest imagery of the caduceus is rooted in Mesopotamia with the Sumerian god Ningishzida; his symbol, a staff with two snakes intertwined around it, dates back to 4000 BC to 3000 BC.

As a symbol, it represents Hermes (or the Roman Mercury), and by extension trades, occupations, or undertakings associated with the god. In later Antiquity, the caduceus provided the basis for the astronomical symbol for planet Mercury. Thus, through its use in astrology, alchemy, and astronomy it has come to denote the planet Mercury and by extension the eponymous planetary metal. It is said that the wand would wake the sleeping and send the awake to sleep. If applied to the dying, their death was gentle; if applied to the dead, they returned to life.

By extension of its association with Mercury and Hermes, the caduceus is also a symbol of commerce and negotiation, two realms in which exchange balanced by reciprocity is recognized as an ideal. This association is ancient, and consistent from classical antiquity to modernity. The caduceus is also a symbol of printing, by extension of the attributes of Mercury associated with writing and eloquence.

Although the Rod of Asclepius, which has only one snake and no wings, is the traditional and more widely used symbol of medicine, the Caduceus is sometimes used by healthcare organizations. Given that the caduceus is primarily a symbol of commerce and other non-medical symbology, many healthcare professionals disapprove of this use.

Representations

System Representation
9764
UTF-8 E2 98 A4
UTF-16 26 24
UTF-32 00 00 26 24
URL-Quoted %E2%98%A4
HTML hex reference ☤
Wrong windows-1252 Mojibake ☤

Elsewhere

Complete Record

Property Value
Age (age) 1.1 (1993)
Unicode Name (na) CADUCEUS
Unicode 1 Name (na1)
Block (blk) Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs
General Category (gc) Other Symbol
Script (sc) Common
Bidirectional Category (bc) Other Neutral
Combining Class (ccc) Not Reordered
Decomposition Type (dt) none
Decomposition Mapping (dm) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Lowercase (Lower)
Simple Lowercase Mapping (slc) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Lowercase Mapping (lc) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Uppercase (Upper)
Simple Uppercase Mapping (suc) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Uppercase Mapping (uc) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Simple Titlecase Mapping (stc) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Titlecase Mapping (tc) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Case Folding (cf) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
ASCII Hex Digit (AHex)
Alphabetic (Alpha)
Bidi Control (Bidi_C)
Bidi Mirrored (Bidi_M)
Composition Exclusion (CE)
Case Ignorable (CI)
Changes When Casefolded (CWCF)
Changes When Casemapped (CWCM)
Changes When NFKC Casefolded (CWKCF)
Changes When Lowercased (CWL)
Changes When Titlecased (CWT)
Changes When Uppercased (CWU)
Cased (Cased)
Full Composition Exclusion (Comp_Ex)
Default Ignorable Code Point (DI)
Dash (Dash)
Deprecated (Dep)
Diacritic (Dia)
Emoji Modifier Base (EBase)
Emoji Component (EComp)
Emoji Modifier (EMod)
Emoji Presentation (EPres)
Emoji (Emoji)
Extender (Ext)
Extended Pictographic (ExtPict)
FC NFKC Closure (FC_NFKC) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Grapheme Cluster Break (GCB) Any
Grapheme Base (Gr_Base)
Grapheme Extend (Gr_Ext)
Grapheme Link (Gr_Link)
Hex Digit (Hex)
Hyphen (Hyphen)
ID Continue (IDC)
ID Start (IDS)
IDS Binary Operator (IDSB)
IDS Trinary Operator and (IDST)
IDSU (IDSU) 0
ID_Compat_Math_Continue (ID_Compat_Math_Continue) 0
ID_Compat_Math_Start (ID_Compat_Math_Start) 0
Ideographic (Ideo)
InCB (InCB) None
Indic Mantra Category (InMC)
Indic Positional Category (InPC) NA
Indic Syllabic Category (InSC) Other
Jamo Short Name (JSN)
Join Control (Join_C)
Logical Order Exception (LOE)
Math (Math)
Noncharacter Code Point (NChar)
NFC Quick Check (NFC_QC) Yes
NFD Quick Check (NFD_QC) Yes
NFKC Casefold (NFKC_CF) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
NFKC Quick Check (NFKC_QC) Yes
NFKC_SCF (NFKC_SCF) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
NFKD Quick Check (NFKD_QC) Yes
Other Alphabetic (OAlpha)
Other Default Ignorable Code Point (ODI)
Other Grapheme Extend (OGr_Ext)
Other ID Continue (OIDC)
Other ID Start (OIDS)
Other Lowercase (OLower)
Other Math (OMath)
Other Uppercase (OUpper)
Prepended Concatenation Mark (PCM)
Pattern Syntax (Pat_Syn)
Pattern White Space (Pat_WS)
Quotation Mark (QMark)
Regional Indicator (RI)
Radical (Radical)
Sentence Break (SB) Other
Soft Dotted (SD)
Sentence Terminal (STerm)
Terminal Punctuation (Term)
Unified Ideograph (UIdeo)
Variation Selector (VS)
Word Break (WB) Other
White Space (WSpace)
XID Continue (XIDC)
XID Start (XIDS)
Expands On NFC (XO_NFC)
Expands On NFD (XO_NFD)
Expands On NFKC (XO_NFKC)
Expands On NFKD (XO_NFKD)
Bidi Paired Bracket (bpb) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Bidi Paired Bracket Type (bpt) None
East Asian Width (ea) neutral
Hangul Syllable Type (hst) Not Applicable
ISO 10646 Comment (isc)
Joining Group (jg) No_Joining_Group
Joining Type (jt) Non Joining
Line Break (lb) Alphabetic
Numeric Type (nt) none
Numeric Value (nv) not a number
Simple Case Folding (scf) Glyph for U+2624 Caduceus
Script Extension (scx)
Vertical Orientation (vo) U