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Symbols connected with death, mourning, endings and the grimmer parts of human record-keeping — memorial marks, hazard signs and funerary notation.
Association with death is not the same as malevolence. Most of these are respectful or protective in intent.
Something this symbol is documented to represent is associated with this idea. That is a fact about the recorded meaning, not a claim that everyone perceives the symbol this way.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “Announces a death, a service or an alarm by a conventional pattern of…”
A pattern of strokes carrying news.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to deceased: “Also written before the name of a deceased person, where it functions as an honorific of the…”
An invocation opening a document.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…read as a family or fellowship broken by a death”
A chain with one link broken, carved on a monument.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…place on it, as distinct from the date of death”
A small coffin or urn outline before a date, marking a burial.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to deceased: “…read as a farewell, or as a reunion of the deceased with those gone before. Both readings circulate and…”
Two hands joined in a handshake, carved on a monument.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…the casualty's rank, name, unit, date of death and age, with an optional religious emblem and a personal…”
A uniform rounded-top headstone bearing a unit badge, name and optional emblem.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “Marks a date of death in biographical and genealogical writing, usually…”
A cross-shaped mark with a long lower arm, used as a second footnote mark.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to deceased: “…monuments also read as the soul of the deceased departing, particularly where the bird is shown in…”
A dove carved on a monument, often in flight or with an olive branch.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to deceased: “…neoclassical revival rather than because the deceased was cremated — inhumation was overwhelmingly the norm…”
A classical urn with a cloth laid over it.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…date records — birth, baptism, marriage, death or burial — without spelling the word out”
The small marks that stand in for born, died and married before a date.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…jurisdictions with wording such as 'Danger of Death', which is a local addition to the pictogram rather…”
A black lightning arrow in a yellow triangle, warning of electrical danger.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…pointing downward, a classical motif of death adopted into monumental sculpture from Greek and Roman…”
A torch carved pointing downward, sometimes still alight.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…points marking the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth”
A cross within a circle, marking four moments of a life.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to mortality: “Reminds the wearer of mortality as a devotional discipline rather than as a threat…”
A skull, coffin or hourglass on a ring, worn as a reminder of mortality.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to deceased: “…marks the name it precedes as that of a deceased person”
An Odia document invocation.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to deceased: “…frequently bearing a carved verse or the deceased's name”
An open book carved on a monument, often a Bible.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…the martyr's palm, denoting victory over death, a transfer of meaning documented in early Christian…”
A long feathered palm leaf carved on a monument.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “Frequently accompanies inscriptions recording death in a pit accident, and in disaster years a burial…”
A pickaxe crossed with a shovel, marking a miner.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…and both are long-established emblems of death and the harvest of life, so the same object supports…”
Farming implements carved on a monument, marking agricultural work.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to poison: “Identifies a bottle as containing poison by touch, without light or reading”
A bottle you can read in the dark.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to deceased: “…denoting prayer, devotion or the piety of the deceased”
Two hands pressed together with fingers pointing upward.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to skull: “…supplementary symbol — radiating waves, a skull and a running figure, inside a red triangle — issued…”
A three-bladed trefoil, conventionally black on a yellow background, warning of ionising radiation hazards.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “Signals distress, a time, a start or a death by firing a gun in a prearranged pattern”
A report that means one thing.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…were defaced or destroyed on their owner's death to stop them being used afterwards”
A device cut in reverse into a ring's face, to be read in its impression.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to deceased: “On a monument it identifies the deceased as a Freemason. Unlike most gravestone motifs this…”
A carpenter's square and a pair of compasses interlocked, the emblem of Freemasonry.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…wealth, health, love of virtue and a natural death — which is a specific enumerated set rather than a…”
A bat with outspread wings.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “The final term in the death's head → soul effigy → urn-and-willow sequence, which…”
A funerary urn with a weeping willow bending over it.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to death: “…wheat the pair is read as the harvest of death, a reading that draws on the same imagery as the figure…”
Ears or a sheaf of wheat carved on a monument.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to deceased: “…gravestone and understood as the soul of the deceased in flight”
A winged child's face carved on a gravestone.
A documented meaning of this symbol refers to skull: “A skull with wings, dominant on gravestones in New England…”
A human skull with wings, carved on early gravestones.
A Symbolwise editor grouped this symbol here. Nothing in the structured record supports or contradicts it — it is a browsing suggestion, not a finding.
The only pictogram in the modern chemical-labelling system that depicts human remains. Every other GHS mark abstracts its hazard; this one does not, because nothing abstract works as fast.
A black skull and crossbones in a red-bordered diamond, the GHS symbol for acute toxicity.