Leo symbol (♌)
♌ is the glyph of Leo, the Lion, the fifth sign of the Western zodiac. Astrologers give its dates as 23 July to 22 August, and in their tradition it is a fire sign ruled by the Sun.
Meaning
♌ is Unicode character U+264C LEO: a small loop leading into a long curl. What the curl shows is disputed. Richard Hinckley Allen (1899) says it has been supposed to be the lion’s mane but looks more like the other end, the tail, which early printed editions of Hyginus and of Albumasar, from the late 15th century, draw at great length, twisting between the hind legs and over the back. The International Dictionary, which Allen calls more scholarly, took it instead for a corrupted form of the first letter of the Greek Λέων (Léōn), lion. Leo is the Latin name. 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. Mane, tail and letter are all readings of the shape; none is documented.
Allen notes that Lajard’s study of the cult of Mithras lists the Leo glyph among the symbols of Mithraic worship, but that how the Mithraic lion related to the zodiac’s, if at all, is not known.
The Nemean lion
In Greek and Roman myth, Allen writes, Leo is the Nemean Lion, which came originally from the moon and, after its time on earth, was carried back to the sky with Hercules, the hero who killed it.
What astrologers say Leo means
In Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, Cancer and Leo are the most northern signs, nearest the zenith and the most productive of heat, and so were given to the two luminaries as their houses: Leo, being masculine, to the Sun. Leo is one of the four solid signs, and belongs to the first triangle, Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, governed by the Sun by day and Jupiter by night. Astrology today, as Britannica describes it, makes Leo a fire sign and a fixed one, and lists “creative, generous, domineering” 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 (♋), Aries symbol (♈), Taurus symbol (♉), Gemini symbol (♊), Virgo symbol (♍), Libra symbol (♎).
Sources
- Miscellaneous Symbols, Range: 2600–26FF (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Unicode Consortium, U+264C
- Star-Names and Their Meanings: Leo, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1899 (reprinted by Dover as Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning), LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer, University of Chicago), Leo
- 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