What 🌘 means
A dark moon with just a thin crescent of light at the side. This is essentially the crescent moon we see from the earth. Both, the light and dark have crater detailing shown on them.
The 🌘 Waning Crescent Moon emoji is the last or the eight-phase of the moon. This stage symbolizes the dark side of the moon taking over, while the crescent is just about visible until that too disappears with the arrival of the new moon phase.
How and when to use it
- The last phase of the moon is close to the new moon. Basically, it's closer to disappearing. So, if you're texting your buddy about how close you are from quitting your job, ending a toxic relationship, or disappearing from any other such scenario, you can use 🌘.
- Darkness isn't always bad. In contradiction to popular beliefs, darkness may also signify isolation, peace, calm, etc. You can use 🌘 to suggest that 'darkness is taking over', and not necessarily in a negative sense. For instance, "My time to FINALLY take that break is here 🌘".
- You can also use 🌘 while commenting on posts that have a crescent moon in it, or anything else that looks like it. Similarly, you can use this emoji in the caption while posting or reposting such content.
- 🌘 can also be used in the context of silence and a little bit of chaos (you'd understand if you relate to this use case). For example, "Thank the heavens I'm on the top floor. Even when my annoying cousins come over, I have my peace of mind amidst their monkeying 🌘".
Other Names
- 🌘 Waning Moon
- 🌘 Last Lunar Phase
- 🌘 Eight Phase of the Lunar Cycle
- 🌘 Phases of the Moon
- 🌘 Lunar Cycle
- 🌘 Old Moon
- 🌘 Crescent Moon
🌘 in real conversations
Is 🌘 the very last phase before a new moon?
Yes, essentially — it's the thinnest sliver in the whole cycle, visible for only a night or two before the moon goes fully dark and the sequence resets at 🌑. Some cultures called this the 'old moon,' the exhausted, barely-there tail end right before everything starts over.
Where would you actually spot 🌘 if you looked for it?
Low in the eastern sky, about an hour before sunrise — the mirror opposite of 🌒's after-sunset, western-sky appearance. It's easy to miss entirely if you're not specifically up early enough to catch it before the sun washes it out.
Does 🌘 ever get used the way 🌑 does, for 'starting fresh'?
Not really — that fresh-start meaning belongs to 🌑 specifically, the actual new moon. 🌘 reads more like a wind-down than a reset: astrology posts sometimes use it for closing out or letting go of something right before the real reset happens, rather than for beginning anything new.
The lowdown
- Category
- Travel & Places › sky & weather
- Codepoints
U+1F318- Emoji version
- Emoji 1.0
- Shortcodes
:waning_crescent_moon:- Keywords
- crescent, moon, space, waning
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.
⚡ Quick round
Which joined the keyboard first — 🌘 Waning Crescent Moon or 🫑 Bell Pepper?
Runs with a crowd
🌘 keeps company in black emojis and moon emojis — tap-to-copy sets for when one emoji isn't enough.