Scorpio symbol (♏)
♏ is the glyph of Scorpio, the Scorpion, the eighth sign of the Western zodiac. Astrologers give its dates as 24 October to 21 November, and in their tradition it is a water sign ruled by Mars.
Meaning
♏ is Unicode character U+264F, which Unicode names SCORPIUS, the constellation’s Latin name, with Scorpio as its other name. It is the same m-like letter as Virgo’s glyph, with the last stroke ending in an arrowhead. Richard Hinckley Allen (1899) says that in earlier times the creature’s sting was added to the sign, perhaps to show its feet, tail and dart. In Greek the Scorpion is Σκορπίος (Skorpíos). Unicode gives the shape a second use, as the minim or drop.
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 sting on ♏ is the one detail of the glyph that plainly pictures its animal; the rest of the shape is unexplained.
Allen says the later peoples of the Euphrates read the Scorpion as the sign of darkness, showing the Sun’s power declining after the autumn equinox, which then fell in it. For Eratosthenes the Scorpion took in the stars of its Claws, which later became Libra.
The scorpion and Orion
In Greek myth, as Allen tells it, the Scorpion killed the giant Orion and was raised to the sky, where Orion, still afraid of it, sinks below the horizon as the Scorpion rises.
Why the dates no longer match the stars
Because of the precession of the equinoxes, Britannica says, the Sun now spends only 23 to 30 November in the constellation Scorpius. It then passes through Ophiuchus, from 30 November to 18 December, a constellation that is not a member of the astrological zodiac. Unicode encodes Ophiuchus too, as ⛎ (U+26CE), under the heading “Zodiacal symbol”.
What astrologers say Scorpio means
In Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, Scorpio is one of the four solid signs. It is feminine, one of the two houses of Mars with Aries, and the Moon’s depression. It belongs to the fourth triangle, Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces, which Ptolemy gives to Mars, with the Moon by night and Venus by day as co-rulers. Astrology today, as Britannica describes it, makes Scorpio a water sign and a fixed one, and lists “passionate, resourceful, jealous” 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
Libra symbol (♎), Aries symbol (♈), Virgo symbol (♍), Taurus symbol (♉), Gemini symbol (♊), Cancer symbol (♋).
Sources
- Miscellaneous Symbols, Range: 2600–26FF (code chart), The Unicode Standard, Unicode Consortium, U+264F, U+26CE
- Star-Names and Their Meanings: Scorpio, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1899 (reprinted by Dover as Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning), LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer, University of Chicago), Scorpio
- Star-Names and Their Meanings: Libra, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1899 (reprinted by Dover as Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning), LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer, University of Chicago), Libra
- 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; History
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Last reviewed September 30, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research