LOVE in Morse Code
LOVE is .-.. --- ...- . - four letters, 39 units, and the shortest of them is the last one.
Letter by letter
Check the sequence twice before anything becomes permanent. Play it back, read it letter by letter, and have someone else read it too. A tattoo cannot be edited.
LOVE is .-.. --- ...- . - L, O, V, E with a
three-unit gap between each. 39 units in all. The tool above turns it into an image you can
download; the styles change how it looks without changing what it says.
Letter by letter
- L
.-..- 9 units - O
---- 11 units, the longest of the four - V
...-- 9 units, the Beethoven rhythm - E
.- 1 unit, the shortest character in the whole code
The shape is unusually good for a design: it opens with a short-long-short-short, runs into three solid dashes in the middle, and ends on a single dot. Whatever you set it in, the middle carries the weight and the end is a full stop.
The single dot at the end is the risk
E is one dot, and a dot is the easiest thing in the world to lose. On a bracelet it is one bead among thirty; on skin it is a single point that a heavy needle can blur into the gap before it. If the E goes, the word reads LOV - which is nothing.
Two things prevent it:
- Keep the gaps visible. The space between letters has to read as three times
the space inside one. If the V and the E run together, the eye joins them into
...-., which is not a character at all. - Have someone decode it back from the finished piece, without telling them what it says. If they read LOVE, it is right. If they hesitate, the gaps are wrong.
The longer version
Most people who look this up are heading for the whole phrase.
I LOVE YOU is .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..-,
with the slashes marking word gaps of seven units - and those gaps are what make three words sound
like three words.
The I love you page has the whole phrase with the audio, the breakdown and the download. For jewellery, the bracelet generator turns any text into a bead pattern with counts; for ink, the tattoo page offers the quieter bar style and a vector file.
Frequently asked questions
-
What is LOVE in Morse code?
.-.. --- ...- .- L, O, V, E, 39 units in all. -
What is I love you in Morse code?
.. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..-. The slashes are the gaps between words, seven units each. -
Can I use this for a tattoo?
Download the SVG from the tool above - it stays sharp at any size. Then have someone else read it back from the image before anything becomes permanent. A tattoo cannot be edited.