The shaking head emoji is 🙂↔️ Head shaking horizontally, added in Emoji 15.1 in 2023 beside 🙂↕️ Head shaking vertically, the nod. A device from before then shows each as two emoji: a smiling face and an arrow.
Read the full guide
A face, a joiner and an arrow
Neither is a single character. The no is 🙂 Slightly smiling face, a zero width joiner and ↔️ Left-right arrow: U+1F642 U+200D U+2194 U+FE0F. The nod swaps in ↕️, U+2195. Neither has a hair or skin tone form.
Where smh went
CLDR, Unicode’s list of search words, files the first under no, shake and shaking and the second under nod and yes. Smh, shaking my head by Wiktionary, is filed under six emoji and neither head shake is one of them: three are the facepalms, one is Pile of poo.
A head shake is not no everywhere. Wikipedia: in parts of southeastern Europe, such as southern Albania, it means yes and a nod means no.
By Wiktionary a quick shake is an emphatic no, and a slower one tends to show disbelief or dismay.
Questions and answers
Which is the new shaking head emoji?
The pair from Emoji 15.1, 🙂↔️ and 🙂↕️. 🫨 Shaking face is one release older, Emoji 15.0, and a different thing: CLDR files it under earthquake and shock, not under no.
Blonde shaking head emoji copy and paste: does one exist?
No. Both head shakes are yellow faces with no hair. The nearest is a combo: 👱♀️↔️, Woman: blond hair then the arrow, or 👱♂️↔️ for a man.
Why does the shaking head emoji show as a face and an arrow?
The device’s emoji are older than Emoji 15.1. UTS #51, Unicode’s emoji standard, says a system with no glyph for a joined sequence ignores the joiner and displays the separate emoji. Nothing is lost: the two parts still read as a head shake.
All 51 items
Head shake emoji 8
🙂↔️Head shake, unjoinedSlightly smiling face, then left-right arrow, with no joiner: what a device from before Emoji 15.1 shows, sent on purpose.
🙂↔️Head shaking horizontallyU+1F642 U+200D U+2194 U+FE0F. A slightly smiling face joined to a left-right arrow. Filed under no, shake and shaking. Emoji 15.1.
🙂↕️Head shaking verticallyU+1F642 U+200D U+2195 U+FE0F. The same face joined to an up-down arrow. The only emoji filed under nod. Filed under yes. Emoji 15.1.
↔️Left-right arrowU+2194 U+FE0F. The arrow inside the no. Filed under arrow and left-right. Emoji 0.6.
🙂↕️Nod, unjoinedSlightly smiling face, then up-down arrow, with no joiner.
🫨Shaking faceU+1FAE8. A different emoji: the whole face shakes. Filed under shaking, earthquake and shock. Emoji 15.0.
🙂Slightly smiling faceU+1F642. The face inside both head shakes. Filed under smile and happy. Emoji 1.0.
↕️Up-down arrowU+2195 U+FE0F. The arrow inside the nod. Filed under arrow and up-down. Emoji 0.6.
Saying no 6
❌Cross markU+274C. Filed under cross and cancel. Emoji 0.6.
😮💨Face exhalingU+1F62E U+200D U+1F4A8. Filed under sigh and groan. Emoji 13.1.
🤨Face with raised eyebrowU+1F928. The only emoji filed under disapproval. Filed under disbelief. Emoji 5.0.
🫷Leftwards pushing handU+1FAF7. Filed under refuse and stop. Emoji 15.0.
🙅Person gesturing NOU+1F645. Unicode's character name is FACE WITH NO GOOD GESTURE. Filed under NO and not. Emoji 0.6.
👎Thumbs downU+1F44E. The only emoji filed under nope. Filed under no and dislike. Emoji 0.6.
Show all 51 items (37 more)
Smh 6
🤦♂️Man facepalmingU+1F926 U+200D U+2642 U+FE0F. Filed under smh and facepalm. Emoji 4.0.
🤦Person facepalmingU+1F926. One of six emoji filed under smh. Filed under disbelief and exasperation. Emoji 3.0.
🤷Person shruggingU+1F937. Neither yes nor no. Filed under dunno and whatever. Emoji 3.0.
🙈See-no-evil monkeyU+1F648. Filed under smh and embarrassed. Emoji 0.6.
😒Unamused faceU+1F612. Filed under smh and unamused. Emoji 0.6.
🤦♀️Woman facepalmingU+1F926 U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F. Filed under smh and facepalm. Emoji 4.0.
Saying yes 5
✅Check mark buttonU+2705. Filed under check and done. Emoji 0.6.
💯Hundred pointsU+1F4AF. Filed under agree and definitely. Emoji 0.6.
👌OK handU+1F44C. Filed under OK and sure. Emoji 0.6.
🫡Saluting faceU+1FAE1. Filed under yes and OK. Emoji 14.0.
👍Thumbs upU+1F44D. Filed under yes and good. Emoji 0.6.
Typed head shakes 7
(-_-)↔A flat typed face and a left right arrow, the text cousin of the emoji
(^_^)↕A typed smile and an up down arrow: the nod
←(-_-)→A flat typed face between two arrows, turned one way and then the other
↔ no ↔The word, with the arrow on both sides
*nods*The other one, between asterisks
*shakes head*The action, between asterisks
smhShaking my head, by Wiktionary: internet slang used to convey disapproval
Head shake lines 6
no. just no. 🙂↔️For the idea in the group chat
nodding like I understood 🙂↕️For the meeting, the lecture, the instructions
one nod for yes, two for snacksFor a road trip
shaking my head, but fondly 🙂↔️For someone you like anyway
slow head shake from across the roomFor when words are too far away
yes, yes, and again yes 🙂↕️For good news
Head shake combos 13
👱♀️↔️Blond head shakeWoman: blond hair, then left-right arrow.
👱♂️↔️Blond head shake, manMan: blond hair, then left-right arrow.
👱♀️↕️Blond nodWoman: blond hair, then up-down arrow.
🙂↔️📱Head shake at the phoneHead shaking horizontally, then mobile phone.
🙂↔️👎No and no againHead shaking horizontally, then thumbs down.
🙂↔️🙏No, thank youHead shaking horizontally, then folded hands.
🙂↕️🤝Nod and shake on itHead shaking vertically, then handshake.
🙂↕️🎵Nodding alongHead shaking vertically, then musical note.
🙂↔️❌Not a chanceHead shaking horizontally, then cross mark.
🙂↔️🤦Shaking my headHead shaking horizontally, then person facepalming.
🙂↕️👍Slow nodHead shaking vertically, then thumbs up.
🙂↔️☝️Tut tutHead shaking horizontally, then index pointing up.
🙂↕️🙂↔️Yes and noHead shaking vertically, then head shaking horizontally.
How this list was compiled: Built on 2026-10-13 from sources read that day. The emoji, their names, code points and Emoji version numbers are from the Unicode emoji list, version 18.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/emoji/emoji-test.txt); names are the CLDR short names printed in that file. Search words are from the CLDR English annotations (https://github.com/unicode-org/cldr/blob/main/common/annotations/en.xml and https://github.com/unicode-org/cldr/blob/main/common/annotationsDerived/en.xml). Head shaking horizontally is the sequence U+1F642 U+200D U+2194 U+FE0F and Head shaking vertically U+1F642 U+200D U+2195 U+FE0F: Slightly smiling face, a zero width joiner and the left-right or the up-down arrow. Both are Emoji 15.1; the year 2023 is from the date line of unicode.org's Emoji 15.1 sequence file (https://www.unicode.org/Public/emoji/15.1/emoji-zwj-sequences.txt, 2023-06-05), which lists both. Neither takes a skin tone or a hair form in the emoji list. That a system with no single glyph for a joined sequence ignores the joiner and shows the separate emoji is from UTS #51, version 18.0, revision 31 (https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/), section 2.5. CLDR files no, shake and shaking under the first and nod and yes under the second; nod leads to no other emoji; smh is filed under six emoji (Unamused face, Pile of poo, See-no-evil monkey and the three facepalms) and under neither head shake; nope is filed under Thumbs down alone and disapproval under Face with raised eyebrow alone. Shaking face is U+1FAE8, Emoji 15.0, filed under shaking, earthquake and shock. The character name FACE WITH NO GOOD GESTURE is from UnicodeData.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt). From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), restated: Head shake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_shake) for what the gesture most commonly means and where it means yes. From Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), restated: SMH (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/SMH) and shake one's head (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shake_one%27s_head) for the quick and the slow shake. Wikipedia's List of emoticons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons) holds no head shake and no nod. The lines and the combo names are this page's own. Licence: own work: the selection, the combo names, the lines and the notes are this site's own. Emoji names, code points and search words are Unicode and CLDR data, used under the Unicode License v3 (https://www.unicode.org/license.txt). Facts from Wikipedia and Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0) are restated in this site's own words and credited in the source line.