Gemini symbol (♊)
♊ is the glyph of Gemini, the Twins, the third sign of the Western zodiac. Astrologers give its dates as 21 May to 21 June, and in their tradition it is an air sign ruled by Mercury.
Meaning
♊ is Unicode character U+264A GEMINI: two upright strokes joined by a bar above and below. Richard Hinckley Allen (1899) says it has generally been taken for the Etrusco-Roman numeral II, and that Seyffert thought it a copy of the emblem of their twin gods that the Spartans carried into battle. Gemini is Latin for twins; in Greek the constellation is Δίδυμοι (Dídymoi), the Twins, and the brothers are Castor and Pollux. 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 numeral and the Spartan emblem are both readings of the shape; neither is documented.
In Greek myth, Allen writes, the Twins were sons of Leda while on earth, and later the Dioscuri, the sons of Zeus; they are also named as Amphion and Zethus, the sons of Antiope. Latin writers called them Ledaei Fratres, the brothers of Leda, and Spartana Suboles, the Spartan offspring, from their mother’s home. Statius’s alter Castor, the other Castor, comes from the story that the brothers took turns to live and to die.
The twin gods of Sparta
Plutarch, Allen notes, called the Twins Ἄνακες, the Lords, and Σιώ, the Two Gods of Sparta. That is the connection behind Seyffert’s reading of the glyph as the Spartans’ battle emblem of the pair.
What astrologers say Gemini means
In Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, Gemini is one of the four bicorporeal (two-bodied) signs, those that fall between a solid sign and a solstice or equinox and share the weather of both. It is masculine, one of the two houses of Mercury with Virgo, and heads the third triangle, Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, governed by Saturn by day and Mercury by night. Astrology today, as Britannica describes it, makes Gemini an air sign and a mutable one, and lists “curious, quick-witted, inconsistent” 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
Virgo symbol (♍), Aries symbol (♈), Taurus symbol (♉), Cancer symbol (♋), Leo symbol (♌), Libra symbol (♎).
Sources
- Miscellaneous Symbols, Range: 2600–26FF (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Unicode Consortium, U+264A
- Star-Names and Their Meanings: Gemini, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1899 (reprinted by Dover as Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning), LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer, University of Chicago), Gemini
- 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
- Zodiac, The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica; last revised by Rick Livingston, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Wayback Machine copy, 11 September 2026), Signs and dates; Astrology
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Last reviewed September 30, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research