Word.ws English Dictionary

emoticon

/ɪˈməʊtɪˌkɒn/US/ɪˈmoʊtəˌkɑn/

emoticon noun: a graphic made up of text characters to represent such emotion; a smiley.

Noun

emoticon (plural emoticons)

  1. A graphic made up of text characters to represent such emotion; a smiley.
    • 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.[1992 December 1, William Grimes, “Computer as a Cultural Tool: Chatter Mounts on Every Topic”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 23 Jul 2021, page C13
    • In a 4 by 2 experimental procedure, :) ;) :( or no emoticon were inserted alternately in simulated e-mail message mock-ups2006, Joseph B. Walther, “Nonverbal dynamics in computer-mediated communication”, in Valerie Manusov, Miles Patterson, editors, The SAGE Handbook of Nonverbal Communication, →ISBN, page 470
  2. An image or graphic icon used to represent such emotions; an emoji.
    • 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).2007, Loren Abdulezer, Susan Abdulezer, Howard Dammond, Skype for Dummies, →ISBN, page 61

emoticon meaning in Tamil, Indonesian and Persian

emoticon in Tamil

முகவடி

emoticon in Indonesian

representation of an emotion of the writer
emotikon

emoticon in Persian

representation of an emotion of the writer
شکلک šeklak

Examples of emoticon in a sentence

  • The range of interpretations was surprising broad, for instance the emoticon (-.-) had 16 possible interpretations2007, M. Yanagisawa, M. Kobayashi, Y. Kato, S. Kato, D. Scott, “Research on the emotions interpreted from emoticons in Japanese cellular...
  • When receiving a message like “We need to talk :(,” the emoticon implies that the conversation will involve bad or sad news.2021 October 8, Ori Manor Zuckerman, “The Importance Of Subtext In Digital Communications”, in Forbes, archived from the original on 04 Jun...

All 13 example sentences with emoticon

Forms of emoticon

pluralemoticons

Origin of emoticon

Blend of emotion + icon. Unrelated to emoji.

Words formed from emoticon

Questions about emoticon

What does emoticon mean?
Emoticon means a graphic made up of text characters to represent such emotion; a smiley.
What is emoticon in Tamil?
Emoticon in Tamil is முகவடி. See Emoticon meaning in Tamil.
How do you use emoticon in a sentence?
The range of interpretations was surprising broad, for instance the emoticon (-.-) had 16 possible interpretations
What part of speech is emoticon?
Emoticon is a noun.
How do you pronounce emoticon?
Emoticon is pronounced /ɪˈmoʊtəˌkɑn/ (US).
What is the plural of emoticon?
The plural of emoticon is emoticons.

Words near emoticon in the dictionary

  1. emoted
  2. emoter
  3. emoters
  4. emotes
  5. emotic
  6. emoticon
  7. emoticonic
  8. emoticonized
  9. emoticonlike
  10. emoticons
  11. emoting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: emoticon (page history and authors); emoticon (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-emoticon.wav.

Cite this entry: “emoticon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/emoticon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.