Emoji meanings: Types of emojis and what do they mean
Emojis function as visual symbols depicting human emotions, living entities, objects, and various symbols. They are extensively utilized on the internet, including in text messaging, social media platforms, and virtually any casual means of communication. Emojis offer a vibrant way to convey feelings and emotions that may be challenging to express with mere letters and text.
If you’ve ever encountered an emoji and pondered its significance, this detailed emoji guide aims to assist you. The following presents a compilation of diverse emoji categories, each accompanied by its respective meaning. Without further delay, let’s dive into the exploration of emojis.
Emojis, those expressive little icons, have become an integral part of digital communication, enriching messages with emotions, humor, and nuances. Let’s explore some common types of emojis and unravel the meanings they convey:
| Emoji |
Emoji name |
Meaning | Other names |
| 😀 | Grinning | It conveys cheerfulness and joy towards something positive | Grinning face |
| 😃 | Smiley | Smiley emoji denotes happiness and positive feelings | Grinning face with big eyes |
| 😄 | Smile | The smile emoji depicts a person’s happiness when sending a greeting text or simply used to compliment something or the other | Grinning face with smiling eyes, happy face, smiley face |
| 😁 | Grin | The grin emoji represents mischievousness but can be used to give away excitement and enjoyment | Beaming face with smiley eyes, cheesy face |
| 😆 | Laughing | The emoji depicts laughter often used to react towards something hilarious | Grinning squinting face emoji |
| 😅 | Sweat smile | Used to depict a close call but is also often used in awkward situations during a chat | Phew emoji, grinning face with sweat, relief emoji |
| 🤣 | Rolling on the floor laughing | Used when someone cracks a hilarious joke | Titled laughter |
| 😂 | Joy | Shedding tears because of laughing so hard | Face with tears of joy, haha emoji |
| 🙂 | Slightly smiling face | An emoji which can have two or more meanings to it such as being positive, happy or patronizing and being ironic | Ironic smile, pain behind the smile |
| 🙃 | Upside down face | The emoji depicts being silly and sarcastic | Sarcasm, silly |
| 😉 | Wink | This emoji signals a joke or a hidden meaning which when used won’t be understood by many | Winky face |
| 😊 | Blush | This emoji expresses extreme happiness and positive feelings | Happy, blush face |
| 😇 | Innocent | This emoji means being as innocent and pure as an angel | Angel |
| 😍 | Heart eyes | Taken straight from cartoons, the hearted eyes emoji is used to convey feelings of love and attraction | Heart face |
| 😘 | Kissing heart | The emoji is used to convey a goodbye to a very close one | Blowing kiss |
| 😚 | Kissing closed eyes | The pink cheeks and puckered lips on this emoji convey sentiments of love and affection | Kissy, kiss |
| 😙 | Kissing smiling eyes | This emoji is also used to convey sentiments of love and affection but in a lighter way | Kissy |
| 😋 | Yum | Used when one is about to have a delicious meal, or already had one | Tasty, delicious |
| 😛 | Stuck out tongue | This conveys a sense of excitement, fun and cuteness | Tongue out |
| 😜 | Stuck out tongue winking eye | Used when just casually kidding around with jokes and funny conversations | Crazy |
| 😐️ | Neutral face | When the other person doesn’t get the joke but can also be used in context to concern for someone | Straight face emoji |
| 😑 | Expressionless | The flat eyes and mouth convey a sense of frustration or disappointment | Straight mouth |
| 🤔 | Thinking face | Depicts going into a deep state of thinking | Thinker |
| 🤫 | Shushing face | When the chat has gone with loads of messages and you want to make everyone quiet | Shh, quiet emoji, hush |
| 🤗 | Hugging face | This emoji depicts a sense of affection for someone | Hugging, Aww come here! |
| 🤐 | Zipper mouth face | Used when secrets and promises are to be kept among only certain number of people | Lips sealed, zit it |
| 🤑 | Money mouth face | This emoji conveys the feeling of getting a good sum of money | Dollar sign eyes, money face |
| 😶 | No mouth | This conveys the situations when one has no words to speak due to being disappointment in a positive or negative way | Blank face, mouthless, silence |
| 😏 | Smirk | The emoji to use when you’ve achieved something great and can’t wait to boast about it | Flirting face, smug face, suggestive face |
| 😒 | Unamused face | Generally related to negative emotions. This emoji conveys grumpiness or irritation towards someone or something | Dissatisfied, Meh, Unimpressed |
| 🙄 | Face with rolling eyes | Used when the other person says something obvious or too dumb | Eye roll |
| 😬 | Grimacing face | The wide-open mouth and clenched teeth depict awkwardness or nervousness | Awkward, eek, nervous |
| 🤥 | Lying face | taken straight from the fictional character Pinocchio, this emoji depicts lying | Liar, long nose, Pinocchio |
| 😌 | Relieved face | This emoji depicts a sense of calmness, peace or satisfaction | Content, pleased |
| 😔 | Pensive face | An emoji used to describe a state of pain and sorrow | Sad, sad face, sorrowful |
| 😴 | Sleeping face | One can use this emoji to convey “good night” to a chat | Sleepy, Zzz face |
| 😪 | Sleepy face | The emoji depicts the feeling of exhaustion after a long tiring day | Side-tear, snot bubble |
| 🤤 | Drooling face | This emoji denotes the irresistibility over a yummy food | Drool, water-dropping |
| 😷 | Face with medical mask | This describes the wearing of a mask to protect from viruses and airborne diseases | Coronavirus, COVID-19, face mask |
| 🤒 | Face with thermometer | This emoji depicts a sick person | Sick, ill |
| 🤕 | Face with head bandage | The emoji denotes a bad head injury | Clumsy, bandaged head, injured |
| 🤢 | Nauseated Face | The face depicting ‘about to throw up’ | Disgusting, vomit face, yuck! |
| 🤮 | Face vomiting | This represents disgust or an actual food illness | Spew, throwing up, vomit |
| 🤧 | Sneezing face | The emoji to use when someone has fallen sick and caught cold | Gesundheit, sneeze |
| 🥵 | Hot face | When the temperature is rising | Overheated face, so damn hot! |
| 🥶 | Cold face | When the temperature touches rock bottom. Extremely cold | Freezing face, Coldness, do damn cold! |
| 🥴 | Woozy face | When you had too much booze | Drunk face |
| 😵 | Face with crossed-out eyes | This emoji denotes disbelief or in some cases even death | Dizzy face |
| 🤯 | Exploding head | Read, heard or saw something extremely shocking and amusing | Mind blow, what the… |
| 🤠 | Cowboy hat face | A simple smiley emoji with a cowboy hat | Cowboy, brown hat face |
| 🥳 | Partying face | Party time! | Let’s party! |
| 🥸 | Disguised face | Sneaking into solving a particular case or matter | Detective |
| 😎 | Smiling face with sunglasses | Feeling overachieved and cool | Sunglasses, cool, Oh yeah! |
| 🤓 | Nerd face | Depicting a mind loaded with theoretical knowledge | Class topper, Nerdy |
| 🧐 | Face with Monocle | This emoji depicts taking a closer into something | Detective mode ON, something fishy |
| 😕 | Confused face | An emoji giving a look of uncertainty | Puzzled, nonplussed |
| ☹️ | Frowning face | This emoji denotes a deeply saddened state | Megafrown, disappointment |
| 😮 | Face with Open mouth | A round mouth emoji describing a shock which makes one go ‘wow!’ | Open mouth, surprised |
| 😯 | Hushed face | The emoji depicts mild amusement or surprise | Surprised face, surprise |
| 😲 | Astonished face | Used when one comes across something amusing or shocking in both positive or negative way | Drunk face, gasping face |
| 😳 | Flushed face | A surprised emoji with eyes wide open | Embarrassed, blushing face, shame |
| 🥺 | Pleading face | Depicts wanting of something so bad that eyes become full of tears | Begging, glossy eyes, simp |
| 😧 | Anguished face | Depicting sadness and disappointment at the same time | Pained face |
| 😨 | Fearful face | This emoji intends to depict fear from someone or something | Scared, surprised |
| 😥 | Sad but relieved face | Sad and relieved at the same time as things could’ve gone much worst | Eyebrow sweat |
| 😭 | Loudly crying face | This emoji conveys inconsolable grief but is also used in fun ways such as laughter or over the top joy | Sobbing, sad tears, crying out loud |
| 😱 | Face screaming in fear | This emoji depicts a high degree of shock which can be both positive and negative | Home alone, scream, shocked |
| 😖 | Confounded face | The zig-zag mouth with crossed eyes on this emoji convey irritation, sadness and rather all kinds of negative feelings | Quivering face, scrunched face |
| 😞 | Disappointed face | This emoji conveys an unhappy and sad face due to some recent events | Sad, sad face |
| 😓 | Downcast face with sweat | This emoji conveys a certain degree of sadness, pain or disappointment | Hard work, dejected |
| 😫 | Tired face | When you’ve had a rough and tiring day at work | Exhausted, fed up |
| 🥱 | Yawning face | Used when someone’s feeling sleepy | Feeling sleepy |
| 😤 | Face with steam from nose | Taken inspiration from manga or anime, this emoji depicts angriness and frustration | Triumph, steaming, frustrated |
| 🫡 | Saluting face | The emoji is used as a sign of respect | Salute |
| 😮💨 | Sigh emoji | Used when expressing exhaustion, worry, or disappointment | Sigh |
| 🫠 | Melting face | Represents extreme heat or embarrassment | Melt |
| 🫥 | Dotted line face | Used to express depression, disappear, or non-interest towards something | Dotted face |
| 😶🌫️ | Face in clouds | Used to depict confusion, foggy thoughts | Foggy |
| 🫣 | Face with peeking eye | Represents peep stare or when someone is frightened | Peeking eye |
| 🫤 | Face with diagonal mouth | Used to express doubtfulness | Meh |
| 🤬 | Face with symbols on the mouth | This emoji depicts vulgar behaviour due to being too much furious at someone or something | Cursing, swearing |
| 👿 | Angry face with horns | When the sender of this emoji becomes so angry that they turn into devils with horns | Devil, devil horns, ultra angry |
| 😈 | Smiling face with horns | When the sender of this emoji is onto something mischievous or wicked | Happy devil |
| 💀 | Skull | This emoji represents death from extreme laughter or frustration | Death, death skull |
| 💩 | Pile of poo | One of the most popular emojis. a poo emoji can be used to describe something as silly or funny but in a disgusting way | Smiling poop, dog dirt |
| 🤡 | Clown face | A circus clown can be used to describe something as creepy or haunted | Joker, what a joke! |
| 👹 | Japanese ogre | A kind of hideous ogre in Japanese folklore | Mask face, Oni, red monster |
| 👺 | Goblin | The goblin emoji denotes evil, anger, cruel behaviour | Long face mask, red mask, grumpy monster |
| 👻 | Ghost | The ghost emoji can be used to convey someone or something as goofy and strange | Halloween, disappear, Snapchat |
| 👽 | Alien | A spooky face of an alien from outer space | Outer space creature |
| 👾 | Alien monster | An alien monster from a video game of some sort | Space invader, video game monster |
| 🤖 | Robot face | The head of a classic vintage robot | Droid, robot |
| 👦 | Boy face | A simple emoji portraying a boy’s face | Boy, child boy |
| 👧 | Girl face | A simple emoji portraying a girl’s face | Girl, child girl |
| 👀 | Eyes | Huge eyes emoji with the pupil pointing to the left | Eyeballs, wide-open eyes, what happened!? |
| ✍️ | Writing hands | An emoji depicting the action of writing with a pen or pencil | Writing, write |
| 👋 | Waving hand | Used either at the start or at the end of the conversation | Goodbye, hello, hand wave |
| 🦾 | Mechanical arm | A robotic artificial arm | Robotic arm, metal arm, artificial arm |
| 🤳 | Selfie | A human arm depicting the action of taking a selfie from a mobile phone | Selfie hand, hand cam |
These meanings are general and can vary based on context and individual interpretation. Emojis provide a visual shorthand to enhance the emotional tone of digital messages and facilitate more expressive online communication.
