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. Or, by extension, any non-standard emoji-like image inserted inline in text, i.e. an image emoticon.
emoji
Definition, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for emoji.
Editorial note
The emoji sets used by Japanese cell phone carriers contain a large number of characters for emoticon images, along with many other non-emoticon emoji.
Quick take
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. Or, by extension, any non-standard emoji-like image inserted inline in text, i.e. an image emoticon.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of emoji gathered in one view.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for emoji.
noun
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. Or, by extension, any non-standard emoji-like image inserted inline in text, i.e. an image emoticon.
Example sentences
The emoji sets used by Japanese cell phone carriers contain a large number of characters for emoticon images, along with many other non-emoticon emoji.
That's an argument nobody is making because emoji escaped japan back in 2008 when people outside japan started unlocking the emoji iOS keyboard and using emoji elsewhere.
And so you couldn't mix emoji and text, now that would be convenient and absolutely wouldn't lead to proprietary emoji implementations in private unicode fields at all.
> And then the argument is that this is just intended to encode Japanese carrier emoji.
Well it would actually because that's how emoji were first integrated in unicode in the first place.
Maybe communication in other languages depends more heavily on emoji because emotions can't be expressed concisely?
Will adding skin color to those emoji really enable better communication, or just create issues?
This is my opinion about including emoji in Unicode, not the skin color modifiers.
What is the reverse of the 'white woman hearts black man' emoji?
I guess it can make some sense to add skin color to emoji that represent people.
In English or German you can get along quite well without emoji.
Why can't we just color emoji a neutral color (green, blue) and be done with it?
Quote examples
For example at the "Princess" emoji it appears to be a blonde girl.
Should emoji "represent" anyone at all though?
For example, on my iPhone, I tried using an emoji such as "📞" (telephone receiver) in an entry from my contacts list, and sure enough that is allowed.
Saying "the whole emoji thing" is like saying "the whole texting thing" in 2003 or "the whole internet thing" in 1997.
Proper noun examples
Emoji are like letters, they have a basic meaning but the exact representation depends on the font.
Emoji might charitably be called an extension of punctuation, but some of the stuff that ends up in the Unicode spec seems pretty crazy.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use emoji in a sentence?
The emoji sets used by Japanese cell phone carriers contain a large number of characters for emoticon images, along with many other non-emoticon emoji.
What does emoji mean?
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. Or, by extension, any non-standard emoji-like image inserted inline in text, i.e. an image emoticon.
What part of speech is emoji?
emoji is commonly used as noun.