Quick Answer
The dove emoji 🕊 typically represents peace, love, hope, and new beginnings. It’s often used in reference to peace treaties, shows of compassion, and in messages promoting positivity. Doves have long been used as a symbol of peace, love, and new beginnings across many cultures. Seeing two doves together amplifies the meaning, representing faithfulness, love, and peace between two parties. The dove emoji is commonly used in its singular form as well but doubling it places emphasis on the significance of the meaning.
Dove Symbolism
The dove is widely recognized as a symbol of peace, love, fidelity, hope, and new beginnings. Doves mate for life, so they also represent lasting love, commitment, and faithfulness. Their white color represents purity and peace. Since ancient times, the dove has symbolized new beginnings and fresh starts due to their ability to reproduce frequently – doves can have up to seven broods per year. The dove’s migration patterns also represent travel, promise, and new chances.
In the Bible, the dove appears in several key moments:
- In the Old Testament, a dove was released by Noah after the flood to find land. It came back with an olive branch to show the water had receded. This signified God’s forgiveness and the promise of new life.
- In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove when he was baptized.
- Doves were used as sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem and came to represent hope and salvation.
Due to this biblical symbolism, the dove became associated with God’s peace, grace, and blessing in Christian art and literature. It remains an important Christian symbol today.
Meaning of the Dove Emoji
When used in its digital icon form, the dove emoji retains its long-standing symbolism of peace, love, hope, and new beginnings. Here are some common meanings and uses of the dove emoji:
Peace
The dove with an olive branch in its beak has become a universal symbol for peace. The dove emoji is commonly used to represent peace, pacifism, and anti-war sentiments. People send the emoji on social media or in messaging apps to express hope for world peace, support for peaceful protests, or to memorialize victims of violence and conflict.
Love
Two doves together symbolize friendship and love. So the dove emoji is commonly used in romantic contexts, such as expressing love for a partner or spouse. It can also show platonic love and affection, like sending love to friends and family. The dove emoji is a popular romantic emoji for Valentine’s Day as well.
Hope
The dove’s biblical origins relate it to salvation and hope. So this emoji can represent hope for the future, belief in better things to come, faith for renewal, etc. People may send the dove to inspire hope in others or to signify their own hopeful outlook.
New Beginnings
Due to their association with new chances, fresh starts, and rebirth, doves signify new beginnings. The dove emoji can mark a new start like a new relationship, job, or chapter in life. It can also commemorate milestones like graduations, birthdays, and holidays as the start of a new year full of possibility.
Peace Treaties
The dove is commonly used to represent peace treaties and diplomatic agreements. People and organizations may include the dove emoji in announcements and messages about peaceful resolutions to conflicts.
Faithfulness
Two doves together especially emphasize the meaning of lasting fidelity and loyalty in relationships. But even the single dove emoji can signal commitment, faithfulness, and devotion as well.
Positivity
Given its uplifting symbolism, the dove emoji is widely used to spread positivity and hope. People send this emoji in inspirational messages and social media posts to encourage others and share words of comfort, hope, and encouragement.
Using the Dove Emoji
Here are some common ways the dove emoji is used in modern digital communication:
- In text messages, emails, and social media posts as an expression of love, peace, hope and positive vibes.
- In religious contexts like Bible verses and Christian newsletter images.
- In engagement, wedding, and anniversary announcements.
- On memorials and condolence messages as a symbol of hope, peace and consolation.
- In greeting cards for all occasions – from Valentines Day and weddings to graduations and new babies.
- In inspirational and uplifting quote images and positivity posts.
- In captions below profile pictures as a symbol of one’s spiritual beliefs or peace-loving nature.
- In political messages and debates regarding peace, diplomacy, and non-violence.
- In announcements about reconciliations, peaceful resolutions, and ceasefires.
- In environmental messages regarding harmony with nature.
People get creative embedding the dove emoji in a wide range of contexts related to love, faith, promise, and new possibility. It remains one of the most versatile and meaningful emoji symbols.
Dove Emoji Popularity and Variations
– The dove emoji ranks as the 147th most popular emoji on Emojipedia.
– On many platforms, the basic dove emoji shows a white dove facing left with its wings outspread. Some platforms add more detail like an olive branch in the dove’s beak.
– Twitter and Samsung’s dove emoji designs show the dove facing upward rather than to the side.
– Facebook and Messenger’s dove emoji used to face to the right but was updated to match the left-facing designs.
– WhatsApp, Twitter and Samsung also include a dove of peace emoji depicting a white dove carrying an olive branch in its beak while facing left. This directly references the biblical story of Noah’s ark and God’s promise of peace.
– Some platforms include dove variations with different colors like the purple dove emoji. These are much less commonly used than the white dove.
– Platforms like Apple, Google, and Facebook also include dove emoji with heart eyes to represent love and romance. The eyes convey a sense of googly-eyed affection.
So in summary, the standard dove emoji, especially in its simple white form facing left, retains its broad symbolism. The peace, love, hope and purity meanings transcend platforms and variations. But adding elements like an olive branch, heart eyes, or colors provides more specialized meanings.
Related Emojis
The dove emoji is commonly used in conjunction with other symbols to reinforce peaceful themes and love:
- 🌈 Rainbow emoji – The rainbow can represent peace, diversity, and pride.
- 💕 Two hearts emoji – Two hearts together epitomize love and romance.
- 🕯 Candle emoji – The candle symbolizes faith, religion, remembrance, and hope.
- 🏳️🌈 Rainbow flag emoji – Represents the LGBTQ+ community and promoting universal acceptance.
- ☮️ Peace symbol emoji – The universal peace sign represents pacifism, anti-war, and nuclear disarmament movements.
- 💞 Revolving hearts emoji – Indicates affection, infatuation, and being lovestruck.
- 🔆 High brightness symbol emoji – This emoji represents clarity, hope, positivity, and good vibes.
Conclusion
The dove emoji remains one of the most versatile and meaningful emoji symbols. In its singular or double form, it retains the ancient symbolic meanings of peace, love, hope, faithfulness, and new beginnings. This makes it highly applicable for digital communication about romance, religion, politics, milestones, remembrance, optimism, and more. The dove endures as a universal sign of grace, promise, and aspirational ideals. So whenever you need an instantly recognizable symbol of peace and love, the dove emoji is always ready to soar.
