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🔍 Left Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji and 🔎 Right Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji

[left] or [rahyt-poin-ting mag-nuh-fahy-ing glas ih-moh-jee]

What does 🔍 Left Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji and 🔎 Right Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji mean?

The left or right-pointing magnifying glass is used to suggest things like inquiry, curiosity, searching online, detective work, or just taking a closer look at something.

Related words:

  • 🕵 detective emoji
  • 👁 eye emoji
  • 🔬 microscope emoji

Where does 🔍 Left Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji and 🔎 Right Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji come from?

There are two magnifying glass emoji depicting the kind of handheld magnifying glass associated with Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Gadget, or little boys burning ants. One points left, 🔍, and the other, right, 🔎.

Both were approved in 2010 under Unicode 6.0 and have caused frustration ever since:

You raise some important questions, @theburiedlife. But, the two magnifying glass emoji aren’t just for style.

Because the emoji is often used as a search icon or to signpost content, its orientation can be meaningful. Some place it before 🔎 the object of interest, such as a link or image. Others place it 🔍 after a comment, like a punctuation mark. The left-tilting version, though, may precede content in languages written right to left, like Arabic.

Yet others make absolutely no distinction between the two, using whichever they get to first on their keyboard. Together, the two emoji can bookend content for emphasis: 🔎Look! 🔍.

Across platforms, the magnifying glass emoji are mostly uniform, showing a clear or light blue-lensed magnifying glass with a gray handle, wood-colored on Google and red on Microsoft.

Examples of 🔍 Left Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji and 🔎 Right Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji

Spot the difference. 🔎7 #pasericat
@paseri021, May, 2018  
Solve the mystery and win a Dino medal this festive period at the Dinosaur Museum [...] 🔍🦕🏅
@visit_dorset, December, 2017
Robert Mueller is the most powerful man in the world, nobody elected him, he's totally unaccountable, and this doesn't bother Democrats or the media at all because he's not investigating Russian interference in the election, he's going after Trump. #StoppingRobertMueller 🚫 🔎
@STL_Blonde, May, 2018

Who uses 🔍 Left Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji and 🔎 Right Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji?

The left- or right-pointing magnifying glass is used for a wide-ranging sense of “inspection.” This can include an up-close-and-personal look at a topic or zoomed-in view of an object.

The magnifying glass emoji can also convey exploration and scientific inquiry.

The magnifying glass emoji can stand for “searching,” such as job hunting or finding more information about an item online.

The magnifying glass gets used for real detective work, investigations, or espionage … too.

NOTE

This is not meant to be a formal definition of 🔍 Left Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji and 🔎 Right Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of 🔍 Left Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji and 🔎 Right Pointing Magnifying Glass emoji that will help our users expand their word mastery.