Motion diagram. A Deaf-recorded clip from the PopSign corpus (CC BY 4.0) exists for this sign and can be placed here.
NO
“no”
How to make it
Snap the index and middle fingers down against the thumb once.
Where the sign comes from
IconicThe sign visibly depicts its meaning — a present-day resemblance, not a historical claim.
The fingers close on the thumb like a mouth snapping shut — a quick 'no'. Thought to compress the fingerspelled N-O.
Sources
- ASL-LEXSehyr, Zed Sevcikova, Naomi Caselli, Ariel Cohen-Goldberg, and Karen Emmorey. "The ASL-LEX 2.0 Project: A Database of Lexical and Phonological Properties for 2,723 Signs in American Sign Language." Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 26, no. 2 (2021): 263–277. link
The sign, taken apart
Every ASL sign is built from a handshape, a place it's made, and a movement. Learn to see these three and you can read and store any sign.
Handshape
Starts as thumb, index, and middle out; ends as fingertips flattened down to meet the thumb (a closed 'beak').
Also: number 3
Location
Neutral space
Made at the neutral space.
Movement
a tap
One-handed.
Palm facing out.