emoticon

See also: emoticón

English

A textual emoticon (left; sense 1.1) and a graphic emoticon (sense 1.2)

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ

Proto-Indo-European *-s

Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs

Proto-Italic *eks

Latin ex

Latin ex-

Proto-Indo-European *m(y)ewh₁-

Proto-Indo-European *-yeti

Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti

Proto-Indo-European *m(y)owh₁éyeti

Proto-Italic *moweō

Latin moveō

Latin ēmoveō

Vulgar Latin *exmovēre

Old French esmovoir

Middle French esmouvoir

Middle French emotionbor.

English emotion

Ancient Greek εἰκών (eikṓn)der.

Latin īcōnbor.

English icon

blend

English emoticon

Blend of emotion + icon. Unrelated to emoji.

Pronunciation

• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /ɪˈmoʊtəˌkɑn/, /əˈmoʊtəˌkɑn/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪˈməʊtɪˌkɒn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

emoticon (plural emoticons)

1. A graphical representation of a particular emotion of the writer, used especially in SMS, email, or other electronic communication.
   2. A graphic made up of text characters to represent such emotion; a smiley.
      • [1992 December 1, William Grimes, “Computer as a Cultural Tool: Chatter Mounts on Every Topic”, in The New York Times‎^[1], archived from the original on 23 July 2021, page C13:

        A remark intended humorously is often indicated by the letter G in parentheses, for "grin," or by a sideways happy face built from punctuation marks. Such symbols are known as emoticons.]

      • 2006, Joseph B. Walther, “Nonverbal dynamics in computer-mediated communication”, in Valerie Manusov, Miles Patterson, editors, The SAGE Handbook of Nonverbal Communication, →ISBN, page 470:

        In a 4 by 2 experimental procedure, :) ;) :( or no emoticon were inserted alternately in simulated e-mail message mock-ups

      • 2007, M. Yanagisawa, M. Kobayashi, Y. Kato, S. Kato, D. Scott, “Research on the emotions interpreted from emoticons in Japanese cellular telephone email”, in T. Hirashima, U. Hoppe, S. Young, editors, Supporting Learning Flow through Integrative Technologies, →ISBN, page 271:

        The range of interpretations was surprising broad, for instance the emoticon (-.-) had 16 possible interpretations

      • 2021 October 8, Ori Manor Zuckerman, “The Importance Of Subtext In Digital Communications”, in Forbes‎^[2], archived from the original on 4 June 2025:

        When receiving a message like “We need to talk :(,” the emoticon implies that the conversation will involve bad or sad news. But a message like “I’m going to kill you :)” is most likely sarcastic. With text communication, in particular, it can be incredibly hard to understand intentionality — especially when there’s humor and sarcasm involved. Because of this, emoji and emoticons can be extremely useful to attach an element of feeling and emotion to the message.

   4. An image or graphic icon used to represent such emotions; an emoji.
      • 2007, Loren Abdulezer, Susan Abdulezer, Howard Dammond, Skype for Dummies, →ISBN, page 61:

        In addition to placing emoticons by clicking icons in the pop-up panel shown in Figure 4-2, you can enter the text representation in your text chat window. For example, to show the image of the emoticon with sunglasses, you enter (cool).

Derived terms

• assicon
• emoticonic
• emoticonized
• emoticonlike
• kineticon
• verticon

Descendants

• → Dutch: emoticon

Translations

representation of an emotion of the writer

• Armenian: սմայլիկ (smaylik), զմայլիկ (hy) (zmaylik)
• Catalan: emoticona (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 表情符號 / 表情符号 (zh) (biǎoqíng fúhào)

• Danish: emotikon (da) n, smiley c
• Dutch: emoticon (nl) m or n
• Esperanto: miensimbolo
• Finnish: hymiö (fi)
• French: émoticône (fr) m, émoticone m, binette (fr) f, frimousse (fr) f
• Galician: emoticona f
• Georgian: სიცილაკი (sicilaḳi)
• German: Emoticon (de) n
• Hebrew: רִגְשׁוֹן m (rigshón), פַּרְצוּפוֹן (he) m (partsufón)
• Hungarian: emotikon (hu), hangulatjel (hu)
• Indonesian: emotikon (id)
• Irish: straoiseog f
• Italian: faccina (it) f
• Japanese: エモティコン (emotikon), 顔文字 (ja) (かおもじ, kaomoji), 絵文字 (ja) (えもじ, emoji)
• Kazakh: күлегеш (külegeš), өңтаңба (öŋtaŋba), эмотикон (èmotıykon)
• Korean: 이모티콘 (ko) (imotikon), 통보문그림기호 (tongbomun'geurimgiho) (North Korea)
• Ligurian: facìn, morìn
• Māori: tohukare
• Persian: شکلک (fa) (šeklak)
• Polish: emotikona f, emotikon (pl) m inan, emotka (pl) f
• Portuguese: emoticon (pt) m
• Romanian: emoticon n
• Russian: сма́йлик (ru) m (smájlik), эмотико́н (ru) m (emotikón), смайл (ru) m (smajl)
• Serbo-Croatian: emotikon m
• Slovene: smeško m, čustvenček m
• Spanish: emoticón (es) m, emoticono (es) m, emoticon m, emotícono m
• Swedish: smilis (sv) c, smilgubbe (sv) c, smajlis (sv) c, emotikon c

emoji — see emoji

See also

• Emoticons appendix
• emotag
• emoji
• kaomoji

Anagrams

• come into

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English emoticon.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /eːˈmoː.ti.kɔn/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: emo‧ti‧con

Noun

emoticon m or n (plural emoticons, no diminutive)

1. emoticon

References

• van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “emoticon”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute

Further reading

• emoticon on the Dutch Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^nl

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English emoticon.

Noun

emoticon m (invariable)

1. emoticon

Anagrams

• metonico

Portuguese

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ

Proto-Indo-European *-s

Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs

Proto-Italic *eks

Latin ex

Latin ex-

Proto-Indo-European *m(y)ewh₁-

Proto-Indo-European *-yeti

Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti

Proto-Indo-European *m(y)owh₁éyeti

Proto-Italic *moweō

Latin moveō

Latin ēmoveō

Vulgar Latin *exmovēre

Old French esmovoir

Middle French esmouvoir

Middle French emotionbor.

English emotion

Ancient Greek εἰκών (eikṓn)der.

Latin īcōnbor.

English icon

blend

English emoticonubor.

Portuguese emoticon

Unadapted borrowing from English emoticon.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /e.mo.t͡ʃiˈkõ/, /eˈmo.t͡ʃi.kõ/

• Rhymes: -õ
• Hyphenation: e‧mo‧ti‧con

Noun

emoticon m (plural emoticons)

1. emoticon (simple drawing using text characters)

Further reading

• “emoticon”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from English emoticon.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /e.mo.ti.ˈkon/
• Rhymes: -on
• Hyphenation: e‧mo‧ti‧con

Noun

emoticon n (plural emoticoane)

1. emoticon

Declension

	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	emoticon	emoticonul	emoticoane	emoticoanele
genitive-dative	emoticon	emoticonului	emoticoane	emoticoanelor
vocative	emoticonule		emoticoanelor

Spanish

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰ

Proto-Indo-European *-s

Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs

Proto-Italic *eks

Latin ex

Latin ex-

Proto-Indo-European *m(y)ewh₁-

Proto-Indo-European *-yeti

Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti

Proto-Indo-European *m(y)owh₁éyeti

Proto-Italic *moweō

Latin moveō

Latin ēmoveō

Vulgar Latin *exmovēre

Old French esmovoir

Middle French esmouvoir

Middle French emotionbor.

English emotion

Ancient Greek εἰκών (eikṓn)der.

Latin īcōnbor.

English icon

blend

English emoticonubor.

Spanish emoticon

Unadapted borrowing from English emoticon.

Noun

emoticon m (plural emoticons)

1. alternative form of emoticono

Usage notes

• According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Further reading

• “emoticon”, in Diccionario panhispánico de dudas [Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts] (in Spanish), 2nd edition, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española]; Association of Academies of the Spanish Language [Spanish: Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española], 2023, →ISBN