- ○ まる - **OK; correct; yes; supported; available** (like <code>✔</code>; note that the check mark usually means "wrong" in Japanese examinations) - masked/censored character (like `*` in English used to mask characters in certain words; see [this][1]) - rival horse; second likely to win (horse race; favorite horse is marked with `◎`) - win; victory; [白星][2] (when used as opposed to 黒星 = `●` = lose) - × ばつ、ぺけ、ばってん - **NG; wrong; no; unsupported; unavailable** - masked/censored character (mainly for sexual reasons; cf: [ちょめちょめ][3]) - multiplication (math) - lose (game) - dead; extinct; obsolete (word, species, person; like <code>†</code> in English) - used to denote romantic relationships, especially in *yaoi* fandom (like "slash" `/` in English) - finished (calendar, event) - △ さんかく - **partially OK; partially supported; nearly sold out; between ○ and ×; questionable** - second move; [後手][4] (in shogi, when used as opposed to `▲` = first move; sometimes inverted (`▽`)) - negative value/earnings (finance, when positive values are marked with nothing) - money gain; increase (stock market, when used as opposed to `▲` = loss) - dark horse; third likely to win (horse race) - □ しかく - unavailable character; glyph missing (see: [豆腐][5] and [*geta* symbol][6]) - full-width space (as opposed to the dot `・` used to denote half-width (ascii) spaces) And these symbols can be used as the casual placeholder for other arbitrary words/characters. (See [this][7]) As you can see, depending on the context, filled symbols often mean the opposite things to the unfilled ones. [1]: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/11810/5010 [2]: http://jisho.org/search/%E7%99%BD%E6%98%9F [3]: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/62154/5010 [4]: http://jisho.org/word/%E5%BE%8C%E6%89%8B [5]: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/5129/5010 [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_typographic_symbols#Other_special_marks [7]: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/12907/5010