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

Christina Haack wrote, followed by a red heart emoji. —Natalia Senanayake, People.com, 25 June 2025

Asked about efforts to rally around Adams, a top political aide to Bloomberg responded with a shrug emoji. —Liz Hoffman, semafor.com, 25 June 2025

Wallace commented on Krakow and Rosenbaum’s post, adding wine and cheese emojis. —Lauren Harvey, Los Angeles Times, 24 June 2025

She’s been punctuating the posts with emojis of black birds and feathers, marking a new symbol for the rapper. —Mankaprr Conteh, Rolling Stone, 23 June 2025

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