🈳

Japanese “vacancy” Button Emoji 🈳

Boxed on a parking garage, hotel, or taxi window, this kanji ku (empty) marks open room still available. It's a rarer sight in a crowded Japanese city than the full sign parked right next to it, and reads generally now for anything with space left: a seat, a slot, an opening.

What 🈳 means

An eight-stroked alphabet read 'kōng' in Chinese and 'sora' in Japanese pasted in white on a blue buttoned emoji with rounded sides and corners. Sometimes, the background can be purple.

The 🈳 Japanese 'Vacancy' Button emoji signifies the 'sky' in Japanese and 'air' in Chinese. In both scenarios, this emoji suggests vacancy, which can be an empty spot, like a job vacancy or even the sense of being free and uncontainable.

How and when to use it

Although 🈳 conveys some beautiful sides to 'vacancy', this emoji ought to be primarily used in the most common way; a job vacancy. While sharing posts, stories, or direct messages (DMs) about such vacancies, include 🈳. For example, "Anything you'd like in here? 🈳".
Now, coming to the metaphorical realm of 🈳 - use this emoji while speaking of vast freedom. For instance, "It's only when you completely unite with everything around you do you ever feel true freedom 🈳".
You may use also use 🈳 while referring to the sky in a literal or a poetic sense. Like, "The sky is as blue as my Monday, ugh 🈳" or "The sky is just a glimpse of our vastness 🈳".
Going by the Chinese translation, 🈳 can be a valuable addition to contexts that are about 'air' - "His voice is like a breath of fresh air 🈳" or "Take a deep breath, fill your lungs and clear your mind 🈳".

Other Names

🈳 Vacant
🈳 Vacancy
🈳 Japanese Sign Meaning 'Vacancy'
🈳 Sora (Japanese)
🈳 Sky
🈳 Kōng (Chinese)
🈳 Air
🈳 Empty and Available
🈳 Squared CJK Unified Ideograph - 7a7a
🈳 空

The lowdown

Category: Symbols › alphanum
Codepoints: U+1F233
Emoji version: Emoji 0.6
Shortcodes: :u7a7a:
Keywords: button, ideograph, Japanese, vacancy

How it looks across platforms

Seeing a blank box instead of the emoji somewhere? Here's why that happens. Curious why the designs above don't match to begin with? Here's why that happens too.