An emoji (/ɪˈmoʊdʒiː/ i-MOH-jee; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversation. Examples of emoji are 😂, 😃, 🧘🏻‍♂️, 🌍, 🌦️, 🥖, 🚗, 📱, 🎉, ❤️, ✅, and 🏁. Emoji exist in various genres, including facial expressions, common objects, places and types of weather, and animals. They are much like emoticons, except emoji are pictures rather than typographic approximations; the term “emoji” in the strict sense refers to such pictures which can be represented as encoded characters, but it is sometimes applied to messaging stickers by extension. Originally meaning pictograph, the word emoji comes from Japanese e (絵, ‘picture’) + moji (文字, ‘character’); the resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental. The ISO 15924 script code for emoji is Zsye.

Originating on Japanese mobile phones in 1997, emoji became increasingly popular worldwide in the 2010s after being added to several mobile operating systems. They are now considered to be a large part of popular culture in the West and around the world. In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries named the Face with Tears of Joy emoji (😂) the word of the year.

Emojipedia is an emoji reference website which documents the meaning and common usage of emoji characters in the Unicode Standard. List of All Emojis and their Meaning. Most commonly described as an emoji encyclopedia or emoji dictionary, Emojipedia also publishes articles and provides tools for tracking new emoji characters, design changes and usage trends. It has been owned by Zedge since 2021.

Emojipedia is a voting member of The Unicode Consortium.

📃 Meanings

Emojipedia provides a list of every emoji that exists and what that emoji means. As of September 2021 there are 3,633 emojis recommended for support across platforms, and these have a number of meanings.

When assessing the meaning of an emoji, factors that go into Emojipedia definitions include:

📜 Historical origins and designs of an emoji
📝 Intended emoji meaning when proposed
👫 Real-world common use of an emoji
🌐 Alternative meanings around the world
📲 Cross-platform design details

Emoji meanings on Emojipedia are written by emoji experts and lexicographers. Emojipedia is not a wiki and definitions are not crowd-sourced, though we welcome tips and corrections.

Definitions on Emojipedia are have been researched and written by:

👩‍💼 Jane Solomon, current Senior Emoji Lexicographer at Emojipedia
🧑‍💻 Keith Broni, Editor In Chief at Emojipedia
👨‍💼 John M. Kelly, former Senior Emoji Lexicographer at Emojipedia
👨‍💻 Jeremy Burge, former Chief Emoji Officer at Emojipedia

To look for an emoji meaning, either search Emojipedia using the search field at the top of all pages, or browse by emoji category:

For new emojis, keep an eye on details of upcoming emoji releases.

History

Jeremy Burge created Emojipedia in 2013, and told the Hackney Gazette “the idea came about when Apple added emojis to iOS 6, but failed to mention which ones were new”.

Emojipedia rose to prominence with the release of Unicode 7 in 2014, when The Register reported the “online encyclopedia of emojis has been chucked offline after vast numbers of people visited the site” in relation to the downtime experienced by the site at the time.

In 2015, Emojipedia entered its first partnership with Quartz to release an app that allowed users access previously-hidden country flag emojis on iOS.

Emojipedia told Business Insider in early 2016 that it served “over 140 million page views” per year, and was profitable. In mid-2016, Emojipedia “urged Apple to rethink its plan to convert the handgun emoji symbol into a water pistol icon” citing cross-platform confusion.

In 2017, The Library of Congress launched the Web Cultures Web Archive which featured a history of memes, gifs, and emojis from references including Emojipedia, Boing Boing and GIPHY.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the site served 23 million page views in October 2017. Total page views for 2013–2019 were said to have reached one billion by February 2019. The New Yorker reported Emojipedia served 50 million page views in April 2020.

In August 2021, Emojipedia was acquired by Zedge for an undisclosed amount.

In February 2022, Keith Broni became Emojipedia’s editor-in-chief, taking over from founder and chief emoji officer Jeremy Burge.

In July 2022, Emojipedia added multi-language support for the first time. Originally or formerly restricted to Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese, support for 13 more languages (including India‘s most spoken languages in celebration of Diwali) were introduced in October 2022.

News and analysis

In 2016 an Emojipedia analysis showed that the peach emoji is most commonly used to represent buttocks.

In 2017, after Google CEO Sundar Pichai pledged to “drop everything” to update Android’s burger emoji, Emojipedia revealed the cheese layering issue had been resolved.

In 2018, Emojipedia revealed that Apple planned to “fix” its bagel emoji design by adding cream cheese, following user complaints.

A 2020 study by Emojipedia found that U+1F637 😷 FACE WITH MEDICAL MASK and U+1F9A0 🦠 MICROBE were most used to represent COVID-19. Also in 2020, Emojipedia revealed that Apple’s forthcoming iOS update would change the mask-wearing emoji to display a smiling face.

In January 2021, Emojipedia reported that U+1F602 😂 FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY had been declared an emoji “for boomers” on TikTok, and in March 2021, it published analysis showing U+1F62D 😭 LOUDLY CRYING FACE had become the most used emoji on Twitter.

World Emoji Day

World Emoji Day is a holiday created by Emojipedia in 2014 which is held on 17 July each year. According to The New York Times , 17 July was chosen due to the design of the calendar emoji (on iOS) showing this date.

Emojipedia used the second annual World Emoji Day to release EmojiVote as “an experiment in Emoji democracy”. In 2017–2020, Apple used this event to preview new emojis for iOS. Emojipedia reveals the winners of the World Emoji Awards each year, with past announcements held live at the New York Stock Exchange and National Museum of Cinema.

Adopt an Emoji

Emojipedia launched Adopt an Emoji in September 2015 as “an attempt to make the site free of display ads” according to Wired. This preceded a similar program by the Unicode Consortium in December 2015.

The Emojipedia “Adopt an Emoji” program was shut down in November 2016, citing confusion for users and advertisers due to the similarity with Unicode’s fundraising effort.

Cultural impact[edit]

In 2018, Portland Maine’s Press Herald reported that Senator Angus King had endorsed a new lobster emoji^[67] but Emojipedia’s design was called out as “anatomically incorrect” due to an incorrect number of legs.^[68] The number of legs on Emojipedia’s lobster design was subsequently fixed in a future release. Slate reported this as “a victory for scientists and lobster fans everywhere”.

Skater Tony Hawk criticized Emojipedia’s skateboard design as being “‘mid-’80s … beginner-level’ board ‘definitely not representative’ of the modern sport” and subsequently worked with the company to produce an updated design.

On BBC Radio 4, Stephen Fry described Emojipedia as “a kind of Académie française for your iPhone” when assessing its impact on the English language.

Legal precedent

In 2018, Emojipedia was presented in the Federal Court of Australia as “a reputable website in telling us how to interpret these faces” by a lawyer for Geoffrey Rush during a defamation case against Nationwide News. This was in the context of interpreting an emoji sent by Rush to a fellow actor, which Rush described as “the looniest emoji I could find”. Rush said he would have used an emoji of Groucho Marx or The Muppets‘ Fozzie Bear if they had been available. Reports indicate Rush’s lawyer “attempted to hand up to Justice Michael Wigney a printout of the emoji’s meaning from Emojipedia” but a barrister for Nationwide News objected, stating it “doesn’t matter what Emojipedia says the emoji is”. Justice Wigney agreed that an emoji definition “is in the eye of the beholder”: inferring the context within the message was more important than the Emojipedia definition.

In the 2020 case of Burrows v Houda, the District Court of New South Wales considered the use of emoji U+1F910 🤐 ZIPPER-MOUTH FACE and whether it could constitute defamation. Judge Gibson referred to Emojipedia noting its definition of the zipper-mouth emoji to imply “a secret” or “stop talking”, “in circumstances where a person impliedly knows the answer but is forbidden or reluctant to answer”

😃 Smileys & People

Emojis for smileys, people, families, hand gestures, clothing and accessories.

🐻 Animals & Nature

Emojis for animals, nature, and weather.

🍔 Food & Drink

Emojis for fruit, vegetables, meals, beverages and utensils.

⚽ Activity

Emojis for sports, music, the arts, hobbies and other activities.

🚀 Travel & Places

Emojis for varied scenes, locations, buildings and modes of transport.

💡 Objects

Emojis for household items, celebrations, stationery and miscellaneous objects.

💕 Symbols

Heart emojis, clocks, arrows, signs and shapes.

🎌 Flags

List of country flag emojis. 🇯🇵 🇰🇷 🇩🇪 🇨🇳 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🇪🇸 🇮🇹 🇷🇺 🇬🇧 Emoji flags are supported on all major platforms except Windows, which displays two-letter country codes instead of emoji flag images.

Copy and paste any flag emoji from this list and it will show on all supported platforms. All emojis on this page are RGI (Recommended for General Interchange by Unicode) except Flag for Texas which is supported by WhatsApp only.

Emoji country flags are based on ISO 3166-1: a list of internationally recognized two-letter country codes. As of 2021 England, Scotland and Wales are the only RGI subdivision flags.

List of All Emojis and their Meaning

📃 Meanings

History

News and analysis

World Emoji Day

Adopt an Emoji

Cultural impact[edit]

Legal precedent

😃 Smileys & People

🐻 Animals & Nature

🍔 Food & Drink

⚽ Activity

🚀 Travel & Places

💡 Objects

💕 Symbols

🎌 Flags

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