Raised back of hand emoji meaning

The raised back of hand emoji shows the back of a hand facing forward with fingers extended. It is often used to represent a gesture of stopping or pausing, as if politely asking someone to wait for a moment. This emoji can also symbolize a high-five, expressing agreement, support, or celebration without needing words. It carries a versatile meaning and is typically used in conversations to convey nonverbal cues like politeness, acknowledgment, or shared understanding. Its simple design makes it easy to recognize and widely applicable in digital communication.

The raised back of hand emoji was approved in Unicode 9.0 and added in Emoji 3.0, see related proposal L2/15054