🙏 Folded Hands

🙏 Folded Hands is read three ways: as prayer, as a plea, and – most commonly in Western usage – as thanks. A fourth reading as a high five persists, though it was never the intended design.

In India and much of South Asia it is recognised as namaste, a greeting.

The default way to thank someone without words. Also standard for condolences.

• 🙏 much appreciated
• Thinking of your family 🙏

Few emoji are read so differently. Unicode calls it “folded hands”, intended as a prayer gesture. In Japan, where the emoji originated, the same posture means itadakimasu before a meal, a request, or an apology. In India and Nepal it is Namaste, a greeting.

In Western chat it has largely settled into “thank you”. And because two hands meet, many people stubbornly read it as a high five – which it never was. That very ambiguity makes it one of the most-used emoji of all: it fits almost anywhere, even if nobody quite agrees on what it says.

• 🤝🙏 – Confirming an agreement and saying thanks at the same time.
• 🙏👐 – Folded Hands and Open Hands
• 🙏🤲 – Folded Hands plus Palms up Together
• 🙏🫶 – Folded Hands and Heart Hands
• 🙏🙌 – Folded Hands with Raising Hands

Easy to mix up with 👐 Open Hands, 🤝 Handshake or 🤲 Palms up Together. They look alike but do not mean the same thing – when in doubt, check the name.