A bored text face has nothing to do and shows it: eyes on the ceiling as in ( ˙-˙ ), a head in two hands, a clock that will not move. The flat -_- lives with the annoyed kaomoji.
Read the full guide
What makes a text face look bored
Staring into space lifts the eyes: ˙ is the character Unicode names Dot above, and 16 faces use it. Head in hands puts a slash each side of the face, or rests the chin on a line of desk. Clock watching adds ◷, an hourglass, a tally or a loading bar. Daydreaming trails the thought bubble .｡oO, and Idle hands toss, poke, spin and stack.
The Japanese words on the last tiles
Each gloss is Wiktionary's. つまらない is boring. 飽きた comes from akiru, to get bored of. ぼんやり is absent-mindedly, だらだら sluggishly, 暇つぶし killing time, and 退屈, taikutsu, is boredom itself.
The clock ◷ is White circle with upper right quadrant, a geometric shape; the hourglasses ⧖ ⧗ are mathematical symbols. None is an emoji.
正 is written in five strokes, so one of it counts five. Wikipedia's article on tally marks records it for cultures that use Chinese characters.
Search waiting for 16 faces, among them a queue, a loading bar and the question from the back seat.
Questions and answers
How do you type a bored face on a keyboard?
Type a slash, a bracket, hyphen, low line, hyphen, a bracket and a backslash: /(-_-)\ is a flat face held in two hands. For a blank stare use apostrophes as eyes, ('-'). Search keyboard for all 15 made of plain keys.
Is there a bored emoji?
No emoji has bored in its name. CLDR, the keyword list Unicode publishes, files the word under five: Unamused face, Pensive face, Yawning face, Face with bags under eyes and Nail polish. They are split between annoyed emoji and tired emoji.
What does hima mean in Japanese?
暇, read hima, is time, free time or leisure as a noun, and free, idle or vacant as an adjective, by Wiktionary's entry. Five tiles here carry it, one inside a thought bubble. Search hima.
All 75 bored text faces
Staring into space 10
( ˙-˙ )Dots set high: eyes on the ceiling
( ˙-˙ )( ˙-˙ )Two of them, the same ceiling
( ˙-˙ )…Looking up, an ellipsis trailing off
( ˙.˙ )Eyes up, a full stop for the mouth
( ˙_˙ )Dot eyes set high over a low line
( ˙‸˙ )Eyes up over a caret pout
( ˙ー˙ )Eyes up, a long sound mark for a mouth
('-')Apostrophes for eyes, keyboard only
('_')Apostrophe eyes over a low line
(´-`)Slanted eyes, a hyphen mouth: miles away
Head in hands 8
(￣_￣)＼＿Cheek on one hand, elbow on the desk
/( ˙-˙ )\Head held up, eyes on the ceiling
/(-_-)\Head in both hands, keyboard only
/(=_=)\Heavy lids, propped up on both sides
__( ˙-˙ )__Chin on the desk, looking up
__(￣_￣)__Chin on the desk, arms flat
／(￣_￣)＼Half shut eyes, a hand at each temple
＿／(￣_￣)Elbow on the desk, cheek on the other hand
Show all 75 bored text faces (57 more)
Clock watching 12
( ˙-˙ )◷Eyes up at the clock on the wall
(-_-) [■■□□□□]A loading bar, two blocks of six
(-_-) ||||Keeping a tally on the wall, four so far
(-_-) ◌ ◌ ◌Three dotted circles: still buffering
(-_-)(-_-)(-_-)Three in a queue, nobody moving
(-_-)⧖An hourglass, sand still running. Borrows ⧖ from Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-B.
(=_=)⧗A filled hourglass and heavy lids. Borrows ⧗ from Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-B.
(￣_￣) [▓▓▓░░░░░]A progress bar in shaded blocks
(￣_￣) 正正, the five stroke tally character
(￣_￣)◷A clock face beside half shut eyes
◴◵◶◷ (￣_￣)Four quarter turns of the same clock
(-_-) 4:59One minute to five on a digital clock
Daydreaming 11
(￣_￣).｡oO( )An empty thought bubble
(-_-) .oO(bored)A thought bubble from plain keys
(-_-).｡oO(home time)Thinking about going home
(=_=).｡oO(is it over yet)The question nobody says aloud
(￣_￣).｡oO(lunch)Thinking about lunch
(￣_￣).｡oO(the weekend)Thinking about the weekend
( ˙-˙ ).｡oO(what now)Out of ideas, asking the ceiling
( ˙-˙ ).｡oO(…)A bubble holding only an ellipsis
(´-`).｡oO(○)Thinking of a circle. That is all
(´-`).｡oO(◷)Thinking about the clock
(´-`).｡oO(ひま)Hima in the bubble: free time, idle
Idle hands 12
(-_-)σ⌒・Flicking a crumb off the desk
(-_-)っ ○ ⊂(-_-)Two of them rolling a ball across
(-_-)っ/\/\Building a house of cards
(-_-)っ[][][]Stacking boxes for no reason
(-_-)ﾉ⌒▷A paper dart, thrown without hope
(￣_￣)σ ○Poking a ball along with one finger
(￣_￣)っ▯Thumb on a phone, nothing new
(￣_￣)ﾉ ○｜Bouncing a ball off the wall
(￣_￣)ﾉ⌒○Tossing a ball up, not watching it
(￣_￣)ﾉ⌒◎Flipping a coin, nothing riding on it
↻(￣_￣)↺Spinning on a swivel chair
(-_-)m tap tapFingers drumming on the desk
With a word 22
( ˙-˙ ) ぼんやりBonyari: absent-mindedly, vacantly
( ˙-˙ ) ぼーっとBōtto: vaguely, indistinctly
(-_-) だらだらDaradara: sluggishly, idling
(-_-) つまらないTsumaranai: boring
(-_-) ひまHima in hiragana
(-_-) 暇つぶしHimatsubushi: killing time
(=_=) 飽きたAkita, from akiru: to get bored of
(￣_￣) ごろごろGorogoro: idly passing the time
(￣_￣) つまんないTsumannai, another form of tsumaranai
(￣_￣) 暇Hima, its kanji: free time, idle
(￣_￣) 暇人Himajin: a person with free time
/(-_-)\ 退屈Taikutsu: boredom, monotony
(-_-) are we there yetThe question from the back seat
(-_-) boredBored, in plain letters
( ˙-˙ ) entertain meA request made to nobody
(￣_￣) ho humHo hum, in plain letters
(-_-) is it Friday yetAsking about Friday
(-_-) loading...Loading, with three full stops
( ˙-˙ ) nothing to doNothing to do, said to the ceiling
/(-_-)\ so boredHead in hands, and it says so
(-_-)◷ tick tockTick tock, with the clock to go with it
(-_-) *twiddles thumbs*Twiddling thumbs, as a stage direction
How this list was compiled: Checked on 2026-10-15. The 75 entries are this site's own selection and arrangement: each was put together for this page from the parts a bored face is made of (eyes set high, a head held in two hands, a clock or a tally beside it, a thought bubble, a hand with nothing to do). Some are forms in common use that nobody owns. The labels, groups and order are this site's own. Every character of every entry was looked up in UnicodeData.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt), and must be an assigned, visible character. The raised eyes are Dot above (U+02D9). The clock faces are White circle with upper right quadrant (U+25F7) and its three quarter turns (U+25F4 to U+25F6); the hourglasses are White hourglass (U+29D6) and Black hourglass (U+29D7). None of them has the Emoji property in emoji-data.txt, version 18.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/emoji/emoji-data.txt); the watch, alarm clock and hourglass emoji are left out, and so is every other emoji. The tally character 正 is from Wikipedia's article Tally marks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_marks, read 2026-10-15): cultures using Chinese characters tally by forming the character 正, which consists of five strokes. The Japanese words come from Wiktionary, each entry read 2026-10-15: hima, as a noun time, free time, leisure, and as an adjective free, idle (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/暇); tsumaranai, boring (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/詰まらない), with tsumannai as another form (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/つまんない); akita, a form of akiru, to get tired of, get bored of, have enough of (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/あきた, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/飽きる); bonyari, absent-mindedly, vacantly (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ぼんやり); bōtto, unclearly, indistinctly, vaguely (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ぼうっと, with ぼーっと as another form); daradara, sluggishly, in an idling manner (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/だらだら); gorogoro, idly passing the time among other senses (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ごろごろ); himatsubushi, killing time (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/暇つぶし); himajin, a person with free time (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/暇人); taikutsu, boredom, monotony (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/退屈). "Borrows" under an entry names each character from outside the blocks of punctuation, common symbols and Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Japanese letters, with its script from Scripts.txt (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/Scripts.txt) or, for a Latin or common character, its block from Blocks.txt (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/Blocks.txt). "Short" means 6 code points or fewer, spaces counted. Nothing here says how any one device draws a face. Licence: own work