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Most people who need a symbol identified know where they found it and not what it is called. Start from the place — a gravestone, a clothing label, a dashboard, a coat of arms — and narrow from there.
Say the place and what it looked like in the same search. “Winged skull on a gravestone” and “square with a line on a clothing label” both work, and each cuts a list of dozens down to a handful. Symbolwise reads the place and the description separately and combines them.
Urns, hourglasses, clasped hands, broken columns, crosses and a great deal of foliage. Recurring, genuinely meaningful, and surrounded by more confident misinformation than any other symbol set on this site.
61 symbols
The most readable memorials in any cemetery, because most of what appears on them is specified rather than chosen.
5 symbols
Christograms, crosses, evangelist emblems and the devices worked into windows, vestments and stone.
172 symbols
Rank devices, qualification badges and service marks — and none of them mean the same thing everywhere.
6 symbols
Decorations, campaign medals, the ribbons they hang from and the small devices pinned to those ribbons — which is usually the part you actually want identified.
18 symbols
The ordinaries, tinctures, attitudes and charges of heraldry — a formal grammar rather than a set of similar symbols.
131 symbols
Crosses, crescents, stars and charges as they appear on national and other flags.
78 symbols
Currency signs, mint marks and the devices struck into money.
33 symbols
Charms, amulets and pendants — and the setting where antiquity claims are least reliable.
45 symbols
The care symbols on a garment tag: wash, bleach, dry, iron and professional care.
77 symbols
Recycling marks, material codes, handling instructions and conformity marks.
233 symbols
Warning and status lights, and the colour convention that tells you how urgent they are.
56 symbols
Warning, prohibition, mandatory and information signs, and the grammar of their shapes.
484 symbols
Map and chart conventions, from topographic series to nautical charts.
610 symbols
Modifier and navigation key markings, and the shortcuts printed in menus.
37 symbols
Circuit elements as drawn in schematics and wiring diagrams.
23 symbols
Rating-plate markings, safety classes and the icons on device housings.
36 symbols
Pharmacy marks, prescription notation and dispensing symbols.
12 symbols
Hazard pictograms, apparatus notation and the marks on reagent bottles.
272 symbols
Clefs, accidentals, rests, dynamics and expression marks.
191 symbols