What the snake emoji ๐ means
๐ can be literal, like a pet snake or a reptile zoo, or figurative. Calling someone a snake means they are sneaky or two-faced, so ๐ often shows up in drama and breakup posts. Programmers use it for Python, even though the language was named after Monty Python, not the reptile.
In the Chinese zodiac, the snake has its own year, which last began in 2025 and comes around every 12 years. The character ่ means snake in both Chinese and Japanese. Browse more characters on the Chinese symbols page.
Snakes in Egyptian hieroglyphs
๐ (Gardiner I14) is a plain snake. ๐, the horned viper, is the Egyptian letter f, and ๐, the cobra, stands for the sound dj. ๐ is the rearing cobra, or uraeus, the protective cobra worn on the front of the pharaoh's crown.
If these show as boxes, your device is missing a hieroglyph font. More signs are on the Egyptian symbols page.
Medical and zodiac snakes: โ๏ธ โค โ๏ธ
โ๏ธ is the staff of Aesculapius, a single snake wrapped around a rod, and the traditional symbol of medicine. โค is the caduceus of Hermes, with two snakes and a pair of wings; it stood for commerce and messengers, but it is often used for medicine in the United States. See the medical symbol page for the full set.
โ๏ธ is Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer, a constellation sometimes called the 13th zodiac sign. Find the twelve classic signs on the zodiac sign symbols page.
How to type a snake symbol
Search for "snake" in your phone's emoji keyboard, press Win + . on Windows or Control + Command + Space on a Mac. Hieroglyphs and โ๏ธ are easiest to copy from this page.