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 circle with an arrow pointing up and right — Mars, the male sign, and iron.
Also known as: Male symbol, Male sign, Man symbol, Circle with an arrow, Alchemical iron symbol, Shield and spear symbol
One character doing three unrelated jobs: the planet Mars in astronomy, the male sign in biology and social use, and iron in alchemy. Unicode names it MALE SIGN, which reflects its commonest modern use rather than its origin.
Denotes the planet Mars in astronomical notation, where it is still used in ephemerides and almanacs.
Contexts: History
Denoted iron in alchemical writing, under the planet–metal correspondences.
A record of what alchemists wrote, not a claim that the association holds. The planet–metal correspondences were a system of belief, and the chemistry they rest on is not sound.
Medieval and early modern alchemy · Contexts: History
Is held in astrological tradition to signify drive, aggression and assertion.
Recorded as what astrological tradition assigns, not as a finding. Symbolwise does not assert that any planet influences anything, and astrology has no empirical standing.
Contexts: History
Marks the male sex in biology, medicine and genealogy, and men or men's facilities in general signage — its most frequent use today, and the reason Unicode names the character MALE SIGN rather than MARS.
Contexts: History
Is popularly explained as a shield and spear, but that reading appears to be a later rationalisation: the glyph is more plausibly a contraction of a Greek word for Mars, and the derivation is not settled.
Two accounts of the origin circulate and the evidence does not clearly favour either. The shield-and-spear story is the more repeated and the less supported.
Contexts: History
Is drawn two ways that a reader will meet in different places. The everyday form, and the one Unicode encodes as MALE SIGN, has a straight arrow leaving the circle at forty-five degrees. Older astronomical and astrological printing frequently gives the arrow a barbed head and a slight curve, and modern astronomical practice increasingly abbreviates the planet to the letter pair Ma rather than drawing the glyph at all.
Turns up far outside astronomy: on lavatory doors and changing rooms, in biological and horticultural keys to mark a male plant or animal, in medical and genealogical records, in pedigree charts, and as jewellery and tattoo design where the two gender signs are worn as a pair.
Contexts: Jewellery, Medicine, Public information, Tattoo
Related forms that are not treated as separate canonical symbols — see our variant rules.
Barbed astronomical form
The arrow drawn with a barbed head and a slight outward curve, standard in older ephemerides and astrological printing and still used in astrological typesetting.
Unicode MALE SIGN
U+2642, the encoded character. Its name says male rather than Mars, which is a record of which of the symbol's uses had become dominant by the time it was encoded.
A circle with a straight arrow rising from its upper right edge at a diagonal, ending in an arrowhead.
Paired as the male and female signs, and as Mars and Venus. The pairing is conventional in both uses.