Aquarius

Also called the water-bearer, ♒

Ancient water-pourer; the waves are the glyph

Aquarius meaning

Aquarius is the water-bearer, the eleventh sign of the zodiac. The glyph ♒ is two parallel waves. In traditional astrology it is an air sign, not a water sign, which is why the waves mislead.

♒U+2652

Two waves. A person pouring is the picture. The mark kept the water.

Where it comes from

The figure pours from a jar. Greeks told Ganymede. The water is in the picture and in the glyph, and still the element system classes the sign as air, with Saturn as the old ruler and Uranus as a modern one. “Age of Aquarius” is a twentieth-century song and a precessional claim about the vernal point, not a feature of the medieval glyph. The two waves are simply how you write the sign small.

Astrology

Air, despite the water

The contradiction is real and old. The image is a pourer. The elemental label is air. Popular astrology picks whichever half is convenient. A careful reading keeps both and does not pretend they were the same idea.

Near this

Sources

Greek Aquarius, the pourer; the two-wave glyph in later manuscripts

Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.

Your margin

Private. It stays in this browser and never joins the canon.

symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 2 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.