emoji

UK/ɪˈməʊ.dʒi/US/ɪˈmoʊ.d͡ʒi/

nounA2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: emojis

An emoji is a tiny picture in a message that shows a feeling or a thing. Send an emoji, emoji keyboard, the laughing emoji.

They began on Japanese phones in the 1990s and are now part of the character standard, which is why the same code shows a slightly different picture on each system — and why arguments about what one means are real. Note that emoji looks like emotion and is not related: the Japanese means picture character.

Definitions of emoji

1nounemojiA tiny picture in a message showing a feeling or a thing.A2
“She replied to my message with a laughing emoji.”

emoji is a symbol.

Where it comes from

Japanese e, picture, plus moji, character. The resemblance to emotion and emoticon is an accident.

Japanese
絵文字
English, today
emoji

Borrowed from Japanese 絵文字. Japanese - 絵文字, from 絵 + 文字. emotion and emoticon.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Technology & Internet, Music, Art & Culture, News & Communication

Practise this word

emoji in the wild

Emoticons were the precursors to modern emojis not just for facial expressions, but also replacing categories like weather, sports and animals.
Emoticon
The first emoji sets were created by Japanese portable electronic device companies in the late 1980s and the 1990s.
Emoji
The word emoji comes from Japanese e + moji and originally meant 'pictograph'; the resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental.
Emoji
In 2016,.ws gained popularity as one of the first domain name registries to offer emoji domains.
.ws
As of 2018, there are approximately 25,000 emoji domains registered on.ws.
.ws

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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