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

Johnson posted on social media a picture of himself with an Eagle emoji and the emoji of a face with steam coming from its nose. —Tom Dougherty, CBS News, 19 Feb. 2026

Thumbs-down emoji filled the Zoom screen. —Mark Leibovich, The Atlantic, 11 Feb. 2026

But a worker’s stitching mistake turned that expression upside down — and turned the toy into a national emoji for an economy that has lately been more neigh than yay. —Janis MacKey Frayer, NBC news, 4 Feb. 2026

After announcements of Lemon’s arrest by Pam Bondi and others, the White House unsurprisingly took to social media to mock him and this latest outcome — with emojis of chains thrown in too. —Dominic Patten, Deadline, 30 Jan. 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