Capricorn symbol (♑)
♑ is the glyph of Capricorn, the Sea-goat, the tenth sign of the Western zodiac. Astrologers give its dates as 22 December to 19 January, and in their tradition it is an earth sign ruled by Saturn.
Meaning
♑ is Unicode character U+2651 CAPRICORN: a V-shaped stroke that runs into a loop and a curling tail. Richard Hinckley Allen (1899) says it is usually thought to be τρ, the first letters of the Greek τράγος (trágos), goat; La Lande read it as the creature’s twisted tail, and Brown as “a conventional representation of a fish-tailed goat”. The Latin name is Capricornus; Aratos called the constellation Αἰγόκερως (Aigókerōs), the Horned Goat. The glyph is the sign’s shorthand in Western astrology.
Origin and history
Where the twelve sign glyphs came from is not known. Encyclopaedia Britannica says their history is unknown and that they first appear in Greek manuscripts of the late Middle Ages. Allen cites Clerke, who found them in manuscripts of about the 10th century but in carvings only from the 15th or 16th, and Brown, who quotes the antiquary C. W. King: King found the glyphs on no antique work and suspected “Arab sages” had devised them, a view Brown did not share. The letters τρ and the goat-fish are both readings of the shape; neither is documented.
The goat with a fish’s tail is old. Allen lists it on manuscripts from the 2nd to the 15th century, on a Syrian seal of 187 BC, and on a fragment of a Babylonian planisphere in the British Museum thought to be of the 12th century BC, and calls this its original form. Aratos, Eratosthenes and Ptolemy thought of it as a plain goat. Eratosthenes knew it as Pan, and the story Smyth reports explains the fish’s tail: Pan plunged into the Nile in a panic when the monster Typhon came.
On coins and amulets
Suetonius and Spanheim, Allen writes, say Capricorn was put on silver coins of the emperor Augustus because it was his birth sign, and astrology has called it the Mansion of Kings. It appears on a coin of the British prince Amminius found in Kent, and was the commonest zodiac figure on star amulets of the 14th and 15th centuries, “worn as a kind of astral defensive armor.”
What astrologers say Capricorn means
In Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, Capricorn is the solstitial sign of winter, the first 30° from the winter solstice, where the Sun turns. It is feminine, one of the two houses of Saturn with Aquarius, signs Ptolemy calls “cold and wintry”; it is Mars’s exaltation and Jupiter’s depression. It belongs to the second triangle, Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn, governed by Venus by day and the Moon by night. Astrology today, as Britannica describes it, makes Capricorn an earth sign and a cardinal one, and lists “disciplined, responsible, unforgiving” as the traits traditionally attached to it. Britannica adds that astrology is not supported by science: no correlation has been found between birth dates and personality.
See also
Cancer symbol (♋), Aquarius symbol (♒), Aries symbol (♈), Taurus symbol (♉), Gemini symbol (♊), Leo symbol (♌).
Sources
- Miscellaneous Symbols, Range: 2600–26FF (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Unicode Consortium, U+2651
- Star-Names and Their Meanings: Capricornus, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1899 (reprinted by Dover as Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning), LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer, University of Chicago), Capricornus
- Star-Names and Their Meanings: Aquarius, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1899 (reprinted by Dover as Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning), LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer, University of Chicago), Aquarius (on the zodiac signs’ symbols)
- Tetrabiblos, Book I, Claudius Ptolemy, 2nd century AD; translated by F. E. Robbins (Loeb Classical Library, 1940), LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer, University of Chicago), I.11, I.17, I.18, I.19
- Zodiac, The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica; last revised by Rick Livingston, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Wayback Machine copy, 11 September 2026), Signs and dates; Astrology
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Last reviewed September 30, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research