A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication made with a part of the body, used instead of or in combination with verbal communication. The language of gesture is rich in ways for individuals to express a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and affection.

Most people use gestures and body language in addition to words when they speak; some ethnic groups and languages use them more than others do, and the amount of such gesturing that is considered culturally acceptable varies from one location to the next.

Hand gestures, i.e., gestures performed by one or two hands, is the most numerous category of gestures due to the ability of the human hand to acquire a huge number of clearly discernible configurations, the fact of importance for the sign languages.

Type of gesture:

Although some gestures, such as the ubiquitous act of pointing, differ little from one place to another, most gestures do not have invariable or universal meanings, having specific connotations only in certain cultures.

Different types of gestures are distinguished. The most famous type of gestures are the so-called emblems or quotable gestures (see the examples below). These are culture specific gestures that can be used as replacement for words. Communities have repertoires of such gestures.

A single emblematic gesture can have very different significance in different cultural contexts, ranging from complimentary to highly offensive.

Another type of gestures are the ones we use when we speak. These gestures are closely coordinated with speech. The meaningful part of the gesture is temporally synchronized (that is, occurs at the same time) with the co-expressive parts of speech.

For example, a gesture that depicts the act of throwing will be synchronous with the word 'threw' in the utterance "and then he threw the ball right into the window."

Other gestures like the so-called beat gestures, are used in conjunction with speech, keeping time with the rhythm of speech and to emphasize certain words or phrases. These types of gestures are integrally connected to speech and thought processes.