The object guide

Pill emoji 💊

💊 is the pill: a red-and-white capsule. It means medicine — prescriptions, vitamins, “take your meds”, pharmacies — and drugs in slang, plus the “red pill/blue pill” of…

Published 28 September 2026 · Updated 28 September 2026

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A little context

What the pill 💊 emoji means

💊 is the pill: a red-and-white capsule. It means medicine — prescriptions, vitamins, “take your meds”, pharmacies — and drugs in slang, plus the “red pill/blue pill” of The Matrix and internet politics, and “take a chill pill”. Original 2010 emoji. Medical set: 🩺 stethoscope, 💉 syringe, 🏥 hospital, 🤒 on the sick emoji guide.

Unicode name: pill · U+1F48A · Emoji 0.6 (original set) · group: Objects.

IN A MESSAGEreminder to take your meds 💊 and drink water

How people use it

Medicine: prescriptions, reminders
Vitamins and supplements: routines
Slang: drugs, red pill
Chill pill: calm down

Compare the options

Emoji	Name	Notes
	pillU+1F48A	Medicine, drugs
	stethoscopeU+1FA7A	Doctor
	syringeU+1F489	Injection
	hospitalU+1F3E5	Hospital
	test tubeU+1F9EA	Chemistry

Questions people ask

What does 💊 mean?

Medicine or pills — prescriptions, vitamins; in slang, drugs.

What does 💊 mean from a guy?

A meds reminder, or slang depending on the chat.

What is red pill?

From The Matrix: choosing a harsh truth; 💊 is used for it online.

About this guide

Written and maintained by the Emoji Directory editorial team, without ads or sponsorship. Meanings describe how the emoji is commonly used in public posts and messages, not an official definition. Names, code points, versions, keywords and translations come from the Unicode Emoji 18.0 and CLDR data; shortcodes from the gemoji project. Last reviewed 28 September 2026. Spotted a mistake or a new usage? Tell us, or read how the directory is made.

Character details

Unicode reference for the emoji on this page
Emoji	Name and code points	Added in
	pillU+1F48A	Emoji 0.6 (original set)
	stethoscopeU+1FA7A	Emoji 12.0 (2019)
	syringeU+1F489	Emoji 0.6 (original set)
	hospitalU+1F3E5	Emoji 0.6 (original set)
	face with thermometerU+1F912	Emoji 1.0 (2015)
	test tubeU+1F9EA	Emoji 11.0 (2018)

Names, code points and versions come from the Unicode Emoji 18.0 data. Artwork (Twemoji, or OpenMoji for the newest emoji) is a preview; pasting uses the receiving app’s design.

Where it works

💊 dates from Emoji 0.6 (original set) and works on every phone, tablet and computer that still receives updates.

Newest emoji on this page: 🩺 stethoscope, Emoji 12.0 (2019).

If you see a box or a split sequence, the device is older than the versions above. Windows, Samsung and WhatsApp add each release on their own schedule. Release dates: Emojipedia emoji versions.

Shortcodes

Type these in GitHub, Slack, Discord and many chat apps to insert the emoji.

Shortcodes
💊 pill	`:pill:`
🩺 stethoscope	`:stethoscope:`
💉 syringe	`:syringe:`
🏥 hospital	`:hospital:`
🤒 face with thermometer	`:face_with_thermometer:`
🧪 test tube	`:test_tube:`

Keywords

doctor, drugs, medicated, medicine, pills, sick, vitamin, health, heart, flu, needle, shot, tool, vaccination, hospital, building

Search terms from the Unicode CLDR annotations and the gemoji project; these also power the site search.

💊 in other languages

Names in other languages
Spanish	píldora
French	pilule
German	Kapsel
Italian	pillola
Portuguese	comprimido
Dutch	pil
Polish	kapsułka
Turkish	hap
Russian	пилюля
Arabic	حبوب
Hindi	गोली
Indonesian	pil
Japanese	薬
Korean	알약
Chinese	药丸

Official CLDR names, as used by keyboards and screen readers in each language.

Developer codes for 💊

Developer codes
Unicode	`U+1F48A`
HTML entity (decimal)	`💊`
HTML entity (hex)	`💊`
CSS content	`"\1F48A"`
JavaScript / JSON	`\u{1F48A}`
JavaScript (UTF-16)	`\uD83D\uDC8A`
Python	`\U0001F48A`
URL-encoded	`%F0%9F%92%8A`
UTF-8 bytes	`F0 9F 92 8A`