☿

☿ U+263F, ☿ MERCURY ← ☾ [U+263E] Miscellaneous Symbols ♀ → [U+2640]

Translingual

Etymology

A simple caduceus (☤) of the Greek god Hermes (and his Roman equivalent Mercury), as seen with a much longer staff in stylized representations of that god e.g. on pottery. The cross was added in the 16th century to Christianize the symbol of a pagan god.

Symbol

☿

Use of ☿ for Wednesday, near the bottom of the calendar dial of this 16th-century clock-calendar. Note that in form it resembles ⟨⟩ Taurus.

1. (astronomy, astrology) Mercury.
2. (alchemy) mercury, quicksilver.
3. (alchemy, archaic) tin.
4. (rare) Wednesday.

   Refers to the Latin phrase dies Mercurii, which literally means "Mercury's day".

5. (botany, of a flower, obsolete) perfect, hermaphrodite.

   (Replaced by ⟨⚥⟩.)

   • 1961 August 17, New Scientist, volume 11, number 248 (in English), Reed Business Information, →ISSN, page 413:

     In his Mantissa Plantarum (1767) and Mantissa Plantarum altera (1771), [Linnaeus] regularly used ♂, ♀ and ☿ for male, female and hermaphrodite flowers respectively.

6. (gender) intersex.
   • 2012, Olga B. A. van den Akker, Reproductive Health Psychology (in English), John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 40:

     The genders are typically represented by symbols derived from the planets. The female (Venus) and male (Mars) symbols (shown below) are commonly known and used.
     Venus ♀ Mars ♂ Mercury ☿
     As not everyone believes that they fit into either the male or female gender role regardless of their biological genetic sex, they tend to refer to themselves as the third category, intersex, intergender or transgender (see Mercury symbol above).

7. (entomology) worker.
   • 1903, C. T. Bingham, Hymenoptera.—Vol. II. Ants and Cuckoo-wasps (The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma) (in English), London: Taylor and Francis, page v:

     Ants like the honey-bees and one section of the wasps, are social insects with, in any well-established nest or community, three distinct forms—the perfect and fertile female (♀) the male (♂), and the so-called neuter or worker (☿), which is merely an undeveloped female.

8. (astrology) mutable zodiacal modality.

   Synonym: 🜳

Derived terms

• (alchemy): 🜐
• (alchemy, archaic): ☿⃞ (tin foil)

Gallery

• 
  Late Classical and Medieval forms
• 
  Classical variant of the symbol
• 
  Manuscript variant of the symbol
• 
  A decorative variant in the Netherlands
• 
  As a symbol for quicksilver
• 
  An abstract variant
• 
  Symbol on a pale-silver background
• 
  Transit of Mercury

Related terms

Gender and sexuality symbols
· · · · · · · · · · ·

English

Noun

☿ (plural ☿es)

1. (alchemy) Abbreviation of quicksilver., mercury
   • 1650, Paracelsus, “Of the Nature of Things”, in John French, transl., A New Light of Alchymie, page 11:

     As a man may return into the womb of his mother, i.e. into the Earth, out of which hee was firſt made a man, and ſhall again bee raiſed at the laſt day: ſo alſo all Metalls may returne into living ☿ againe, and become ☿, and by Fire bee regenerated, and purified, if for the ſpace of forty weeks, they bee kept in a continuall heat, as an infant is in his Mothers wombe.

   • c. 1653-1656, George Starkey, translated by William R. Newman, Lawrence M. Principe, Alchemical Laboratory Notebooks and Correspondence, University of Chicago Press, published 2004, page 250:

     Edward he sayth that the Philosophers doe write of two 🜍rs & to them two ☿es joyned, & these are Red most pure & white.

   • 1683, anonymous author, The Practice of Lights: Or an Excellent and Ancient Treatise of the Philosophers Stone, page 29; reprinted in Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises in Chymistry, 1684:

     Then turned I up the Glaſs, and there appeared a thouſand ſparks, like very crude ☿ bright and ſhining, marvelous to ſight

Derived terms

• ☿ial, ☿all

Latin

Noun

☿ m (genitive ☿riī); second declension

1. (alchemy) Abbreviation of mercurius (“mercury”).
   • 1656, Johann Schröder, Pharmacopeia medico-chymica [Medico-Chemical Pharamcopoeia], page 319:

     Hinc digerendo calcem illam in ☿m conuertit

     Hence by dissolving the lime he turns it into mercury

   • 1701, Johann Christoph Sommerhoff, Lexicon pharmaceutico-chymicum latino-germanicum & germanico-latinum [Pharmaceutico-Chemical Lexicon, Latin-German and German-Latin], page 69:

     Cinnabaris Philoſophorum, 🝞atur ex 🜍re ♁nii cum ☿rio mixto ſepties

     Philosophers' cinnabar is sublimated from sulfur of antimony mixed with mercury seven times

Declension

Second-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	☿	☿riī
genitive	☿riī	☿riōrum
dative	☿riō	☿riīs
accusative	☿rium ☿m	☿riōs
ablative	☿riō	☿riīs
vocative	☿rie	☿riī

Second-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	☿us	☿ī
genitive	☿ī	☿ōrum
dative	☿ō	☿īs
accusative	☿um	☿ōs
ablative	☿ō	☿īs
vocative	☿e	☿ī

Derived terms

• ☿i