emoticon.
A graphical representation of a particular emotion of the writer, used especially in SMS, email, or other electronic communication.
Meaning & usage
A graphical representation of a particular emotion of the writer, used especially in SMS, email, or other electronic communication. A graphic made up of text characters to represent such emotion; a smiley.
A graphical representation of a particular emotion of the writer, used especially in SMS, email, or other electronic communication. An image or graphic icon used to represent such emotions; an emoji.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs Proto-Italic *eks Latin ex Latin ex- Proto-Indo-European *m(y)ewh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti Proto-Indo-European *m(y)owh₁éyeti Proto-Italic *moweō Latin moveō Latin ēmoveō Vulgar Latin *exmovēre Old French esmovoir Middle French esmouvoir Middle French emotionbor. English emotion Ancient Greek εἰκών (eikṓn)der. Latin īcōnbor. English icon blend English emoticon Blend of emotion + icon. Unrelated to emoji.
Try it on your idea.
emoticon has 8 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.