U+263B "☻" Black Smiling Face Unicode Character
Unicode Version 17.0
☻
U+263B "☻" Black Smiling Face is a typographic symbol that represents a solid, filled-in smiley face, often interpreted as a more subdued, mysterious, or inverted counterpart to the classic yellow smiling face emoji. Originating from the early days of digital communication and computer character sets like IBM Code Page 437, it is part of the Miscellaneous Symbols block in Unicode and is frequently used in text-based interfaces, retro computing, or as a stylistic placeholder for humor, irony, or a neutral to slightly mischievous expression. Unlike its lighter counterpart, the black smiling face can convey a sense of deadpan or dark humor, and it remains a recognizable glyph in modern plain text environments.
General Properties
| Code Point | U+263B |
| Version Added | 1.1 |
| Name | Black Smiling Face |
| Block | Miscellaneous Symbols |
| General Category | Other Symbol |
| Canonical Combining Class | Not Reordered |
| Bidirectional Class | Other Neutral |
Encodings
| HTML Decimal Encoding | ☻ |
| HTML Hex Encoding | ☻ |
| UTF-8 Encoding | 0xE2 0x98 0xBB |
| UTF-16 Encoding | 0x263B |
| UTF-32 Encoding | 0x0000263B |
| C/C++/Java Escape | \u263b |
Unicode Properties
| NFC Quick Check | Yes |
| NFD Quick Check | Yes |
| NFKC Quick Check | Yes |
| NFKD Quick Check | Yes |
| Numeric Type | None |
| Numeric Value | NaN |
| Line Break | Ideographic |
| Script | Common |
| Script Extensions | Common |
| Indic Syllabic Category | Other |
| Pattern Syntax | Yes |
| Vertical Orientation | Upright |
| Grapheme Base | Yes |
| Grapheme Cluster Break | Other |
| Word Break | Other |
| Sentence Break | Other |