emoji

noun

emo·​ji ē-ˈmō-jē 

plural emoji or emojis

: any of various small images, symbols, or icons used in text fields in electronic communication (as in text messages, email, and social media) to express the emotional attitude of the writer, convey information succinctly, communicate a message playfully without using words, etc.

The function of emoji, as [emoji developer Shigetaka] Kurita describes it—adding subtle emotional emphasis to a sentence in text—isn't too different from that of emoticons, the frowny and smiley faces that people have been making out of punctuation since the mid-1990s.

—Britt Peterson

compare emoticon

Examples of emoji in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In the comments section, Paltrow showed her daughter's look some love with three sparkle emoji. —Chanel Vargas, InStyle, 5 June 2026

Flags referred to corners, a banana emoji to yellow cards. —Jacob Whitehead, New York Times, 4 June 2026

Finally, because no Android feature drop seems to complete without some emoji feature, this one includes yet another set of new combinations possible in the Gboard app’s Emoji Kitchen tool. —Rob Pegoraro, PC Magazine, 3 June 2026

Their kids would help them with how to make texts look legitimate down to the punctuation, the abbreviations and the correct emojis. —Amy Amatangelo, Parents, 1 June 2026

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Japanese, literally, "pictograph," from e "picture, drawing" + moji "letter, character"

First Known Use

1997, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for emoji

• koji
• logie
• shoji
• pedagogy

Kids Definition

emoji

noun

emo·​ji ē-ˈmō-jē 

plural emoji or emojis

: any of various small images, symbols, or icons used in electronic communication (as email) to express the feelings or attitude of the writer or to present information concisely or playfully