Dictionary

emoji en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /iˈmoʊ.d͡ʒi/ (General-American)
• (Canada) audio
• (Australia) audio
• /ɪˈməʊ.dʒi/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ɪˈmoʊ.d͡ʒi/ (General-American)

Etymology

Etymology tree Middle Chinese 繪 (hwajH)bor. Japanese 絵 (e) Middle Chinese 文字 (mjun dziH)bor. Japanese 文字 (monji) Japanese 文字 (moji) Japanese 絵文字 (emoji)bor. English emoji Borrowed from Japanese 絵文字(えもじ) (emoji), from 絵(え) (e, “picture”) + 文字(もじ) (moji, “character”). False cognate of English emotion and emoticon.

Meanings

1. A digital graphic icon with a unique code point used to represent a concept, object, person, animal or place, originally used in Japanese text messaging but since adopted internationally in other contexts such as social media.
   • So what do a bunch of dudes with iPhones do when they haven't eaten all day, are waiting at your restaurant table, starving, annoyed, and need to pass the time. They innovate. They bring emojis to life. In public. […] Give it a shot – it's probably the one semi-practical thing you can do with an emoji[…]. 2011 April 5, Sam Biddle, “IRL Emojis: Our New Favourite Way to Waste Time on the Phone”, in Gizmodo, archived from the original on 20 Mar 2013:
   • When receiving a message like “We need to talk :(,” the emoticon implies that the conversation will involve bad or sad news. But a message like “I’m going to kill you :)” is most likely sarcastic. With text communication, in particular, it can be incredibly hard to understand intentionality — especially when there’s humor and sarcasm involved. Because of this, emoji and emoticons can be extremely useful to attach an element of feeling and emotion to the message. 2021 October 8, Ori Manor Zuckerman, “The Importance Of Subtext In Digital Communications”, in Forbes, archived from the original on 04 Jun 2025:
   • Apple wants to introduce new emojis to better represent people with disabilities. A guide dog, a wheelchair user and prosthetic limbs are just some of the symbols it's suggested. 2018 March 24, “Apple Wants to Introduce New Emojis for Disabled People”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 09 Jul 2018:
   • Like any natural language grammar, the distribution of emoji in texts, as well as the construction of phrases and sentences with emoji symbols in them, implies a systematic structure, otherwise it would be impossible to literally "read" the emoji texts. 2017, Marcel Danesi, “Emoji Grammar”, in The Semiotics of Emoji (Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics), London; New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 77:
   • One of the most exciting announcements at Twitter's Chirp conference this week was "Annotated Tweets". […] The data attached doesn't have to be simple text. Twitter suggests examples such as MIDI data (for music) or emoji (for fancy emoticons). 2010 April 17, Martin Bryant, “Twitter Reveals Details of New ‘Annotated Tweets’ Feature”, in The Next Web, archived from the original on 22 Feb 2017:
   • At present, Emoji functions not to replace the linguistic mode, but to complement it – the good old-fashioned English word is not going to be in danger any time soon. Emoji enables, arguably for the first time, a multimodal component to text-based digital communication, providing a code that fills out the communicative message in the linguistic mode, conveyed through text. 2017 August, Vyvyan Evans, “What’s in a Word?”, in The Emoji Code: The Linguistics behind Smiley Faces and Scaredy Cats, 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Picador, →ISBN, page 102:
   • In order to communicate quickly, many mobile phone users use emoji characters (similar to emoticons) while sending messages. Service providers have also created a set of emoji characters and have added support for it. 2002, Language International: The Business Resource for a Multilingual Age, volume 14, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 45:
   • Your prose is dopey / Think you should only / Write in emoji 2014, "Weird Al" Yankovic, “Word Crimes”:
   • In addition to promoting efficient communication, emojis foster a sense of camaraderie and unity among coworkers. This was demonstrated during the initial stages of the pandemic when Slack employees used the ❤️ emoji to express solidarity and emotional support. 2023 July 17, Benjamin Laker, “Emojis in the Modern Workplace: A Psychological Perspective”, in Psychology Today, archived from the original on 17 Dec 2025:
2. (broadly) Any non-standard emoji-like image inserted inline in text, e.g. an image emoticon.

Forms

Coordinates

emoticon · sticker · kaomoji

Deriveds

emojilike · emojification · emoji ZWJ sequence · emoji flag sequence · reacji · emojipasta · emoji sequence · emojify

Relateds

pictograph · mojibake · pictogram

Translations (56)

bn ইমোজি (digital graphic icon) · lo ອີໂມຈິ (digital graphic icon) · he פַּרְצוּפוֹן (digital graphic icon) · ko 이모지 (digital graphic icon) · hu emodzsi (digital graphic icon) · ru эмо́дзи (digital graphic icon) · pt emóji (digital graphic icon) · fr émoji (digital graphic icon) · kk сынтаңба (digital graphic icon) · ko 에모지 (digital graphic icon) · is tjámerki (digital graphic icon) · mi emohi (digital graphic icon) · sah эмодьи (digital graphic icon) · ti ስሜት ገላጭ ምስል (digital graphic icon) · is tjákn (digital graphic icon) · sh емоџи (digital graphic icon) · pt emoji (digital graphic icon) · chr ᎡᎼᏥ (digital graphic icon) · fa اموجی (digital graphic icon) · eo emoĝio (digital graphic icon) · my အီမိုဂျီ (digital graphic icon) · be эмо́дзі (digital graphic icon) · hy էմոջի (digital graphic icon) · fa ایموجی (digital graphic icon) · fa شکلک (digital graphic icon) · io emoji (digital graphic icon) · el εμότζι (digital graphic icon) · de Emoji (digital graphic icon) · es emoji (digital graphic icon) · es emoyi (digital graphic icon) · ro emoji (digital graphic icon) · fr emoji (digital graphic icon) · cmn 繪文字 /绘文字 (digital graphic icon) · nl emoji (digital graphic icon) · cs emodži (digital graphic icon) · id emoji (digital graphic icon) · mk емоџи (digital graphic icon) · th เอโมจิ (digital graphic icon) · ps اېموجي (digital graphic icon) · cs emoji (digital graphic icon) · bg емо́джи (digital graphic icon) · fi emoji (digital graphic icon) · pl emoji (digital graphic icon) · ar إِيمُوجِي (digital graphic icon) · yue 繪文字 /绘文字 (digital graphic icon) · hi इमोजी (digital graphic icon) · ti ኢሞጂ (digital graphic icon) · he אֶמוֹגִ׳י (digital graphic icon) · tr sındamga (digital graphic icon) · uk емо́дзі (digital graphic icon) · sv emoji (digital graphic icon) · ur ایموجی (digital graphic icon) · mr इमोजी (digital graphic icon) · tr emoji (digital graphic icon) · ja 絵文字 (digital graphic icon) · it emoji (digital graphic icon)