The shrug emoji is Person shrugging, U+1F937, with a man and a woman form. Copy and paste it here, beside the text shrug, three shrugs typed on a keyboard, five ready lines and twelve combos.
Read the full guide
Three forms of one emoji
Person shrugging came with Emoji 3.0. Man shrugging and Woman shrugging followed in Emoji 4.0, each the person joined to a gender sign. CLDR files all three under the same words, shrug and dunno among them.
The text shrug, and three typed on a keyboard
ยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏ is the classic: two macrons for hands, a backslash and a slash for arms, and ใ, the katakana letter tu, for the face. Three shrugs here are this page's own and use keyboard characters only, with no macron and no katakana: \_(o.o)_/, \_('_')_/ and \_(-~-)_/.
Face with diagonal mouth is from Emoji 14.0, so an older device shows an empty box.
Questions and answers
What is the shrug emoji called?
Person shrugging, U+1F937. Unicode's own name for the character is one word, Shrug. It came with Emoji 3.0; Man shrugging and Woman shrugging are the same person joined to a gender sign.
What does the shrug emoji mean?
I don't know, or I don't mind. Wikipedia describes a shrug as raising both shoulders to show indifference or not knowing an answer, and CLDR files the emoji under dunno, idk, maybe, guess, doubt and whatever.
How do you type the shrug emoticon?
Type a macron, a backslash, an underscore, the face in parentheses, an underscore, a slash and a macron. The macron and the katakana letter ใ have no key on a US keyboard, so copy the tile here.
All 35 shrugs
The shrug, and the faces filed under doubt or dunno 5
๐Confused faceU+1F615. The only face filed under dunno. Emoji 1.0.
๐ซคFace with diagonal mouthU+1FAE4. Filed under doubt, as the shrug is, and under unsure and meh. Emoji 14.0.
๐คทโโ๏ธMan shruggingU+1F937 U+200D U+2642 U+FE0F. Person shrugging joined to the male sign. Emoji 4.0.
๐คทPerson shruggingU+1F937. The shrug. Unicode's own name for it is one word, Shrug. Filed under dunno, idk, maybe, guess and whatever. Emoji 3.0.
๐คทโโ๏ธWoman shruggingU+1F937 U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F. Person shrugging joined to the female sign. Emoji 4.0.
Text shrugs 8
\_('_')_/Keyboard only, small eyes
\_(-~-)_/Keyboard only, eyes shut and a wavy mouth
ยฏ\_(~_~)_/ยฏMacron hands, eyes narrowed
ยฏ\_(ใ)_/ยฏThe classic text shrug: macron hands, a backslash and a slash for arms, katakana tu for the face
ยฏ\_(0.0)_/ยฏ ?Wide eyes, with a question mark after it
ยฏ\_(e_e)_/ยฏMacron hands, eyes looking away
\_(o.o)_/Keyboard characters only: no macrons, round eyes
ยฏ\_(o.o)_/ยฏMacron hands, round eyes
Shrug lines 5
beats me ๐คทNo idea at all
could go either way ๐คทToo close to call
idk ๐คทI do not know
not my call ๐คทSomeone else decides
your guess is as good as mine ๐คทNo better informed than you
Show all 35 shrugs (17 more)
Near misses 5
๐คจFace with raised eyebrowU+1F928. Doubts you, not itself: filed under skeptical and disbelief. Emoji 5.0.
๐ซดPalm up handU+1FAF4. One open palm: filed under offer and beckon. Emoji 14.0.
๐คฒPalms up togetherU+1F932. Two palms up, held together: filed under prayer, dua and wish. Emoji 5.0.
๐Person tipping handU+1F481. One palm up, not two. Filed under sarcasm, sassy and whatever, not under shrug. Emoji 0.6.
๐คThinking faceU+1F914. Still working on it: filed under hmm and ponder. Emoji 1.0.
Shrug combos 12
๐คท๐ฎFuture unclearPerson shrugging, then crystal ball.
๐ช๐คทHeads or tailsCoin, then person shrugging.
๐๐คทLost the keys againKey, then person shrugging.
๐บ๏ธ๐คทLost with a mapWorld map, then person shrugging.
๐คทโNot a cluePerson shrugging, then red question mark.
๐๐๐คทPizza or burgerPizza, then hamburger, then person shrugging.
๐คท๐ง๏ธโ๏ธRain or shinePerson shrugging, then cloud with rain, then sun.
๐ฒ๐คทRoll for itGame die, then person shrugging.
๐๐คทStill lookingMagnifying glass tilted left, then person shrugging.
๐๐คทWas there homeworkMemo, then person shrugging.
๐ ๐คทWhat day is itCalendar, then person shrugging.
๐๐๐คทYes, no, maybeThumbs up, then thumbs down, then person shrugging.
How this list was compiled: 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). Person shrugging is U+1F937, Emoji 3.0; its Unicode character name is Shrug. The first group holds every emoji CLDR files under shrug, dunno, doubt, idk, guess, maybe, ignorance or indifference, which is five; CLDR files 16 emoji under whatever, the three shrugs among them; of the other 13 only Face with diagonal mouth and Person tipping hand are tiles here. Every character that is not an emoji was checked against UnicodeData.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt). What a shrug is, from Wikipedia, Shrug (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrug, CC BY-SA 4.0), restated. The classic text shrug is a form in common use that nobody owns; the seven other text shrugs, the lines and the combo names are this site's own work. All sources were read on 2 October 2026. Licence: own work: the selection, the combo names, the text faces and drawings 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 are restated in this site's own words and credited in the source line (CC BY-SA 4.0).