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 is a synonym for "emoji"?

Common synonyms include: emoticon, kaomoji, sticker.

Emoji

//ɪˈməʊdʒi// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
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.
"In order to communicate quickly, many mobile phone users use emoji characters (similar to emoticons) while sending messages. Service providers have also created a set of emoji characters and have added support for it."
2
ideograms and smileys used in electronic messages and Web pages wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

emoticon kaomoji sticker

Example

More examples

"Sami put an angry emoji in his message."

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 絵文字(えもじ) (emoji), from 絵(え) (e, “picture”) + 文字(もじ) (moji, “character”). False cognate of English emotion and emoticon, but the coincidental phonetic resemblance may have facilitated its adoption into English.https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Loanwords_and_Japanese_Identity/VAymEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=emoji&pg=PA184

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.