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

The post included an emoji of an American flag. —Anna Commander, MSNBC Newsweek, 1 Apr. 2026

Nobody loves thinking about, talking about, or sending a custom Slack emoji of Bush more than STAT’s Anil Oza, who first wrote about him in our Polk award-winning series, American Science, Shattered. —Theresa Gaffney, STAT, 1 Apr. 2026

Rivera told Ballard in the text message, which included three emojis with crying eyes. —Jay Weaver, Miami Herald, 1 Apr. 2026

In the picture, her boyfriend Steve Neild's face is covered with a big happy face emoji. —Lori A Bashian, FOXNews.com, 1 Apr. 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