We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
A hand with index and little finger extended, the others folded.
Also known as: Horns hand sign, Devil horns
A gesture with two quite separate lives: a southern Italian sign made downward against the evil eye, and — since the 1970s — the raised hand of rock and metal audiences. The gesture is the same and the meanings are unrelated.
In southern Italian tradition, made with the hand pointed downward as a gesture warding off the evil eye or bad luck.
Southern Italy
Also used in Italian usage, pointed at a person, as a serious insult implying the target's partner is unfaithful — the same hand, a different direction, an entirely different message.
Italy
Since the 1970s, raised palm-outward by rock and heavy metal audiences and performers as a sign of enthusiasm, popularised in that context by Ronnie James Dio, who described learning it from his Italian grandmother as an evil-eye gesture.
From the 1970s
The rock usage carries no occult meaning despite persistent claims during the 1980s that it did. The overlap with the older Italian gesture is one of form and transmission, not of significance.
A hand with the index finger and little finger extended straight and the two middle fingers folded down under the thumb.
Both are Italian hand gestures against the evil eye, made with different finger positions and carrying different secondary meanings.