So excited for tonight! 🥳 So excited for tonight! 😴 So excited for tonight! 💃 So excited for tonight! 💋 These sentences are all nearly identical, but they’re saying very different things—that’s the power of emojis. These little pictures really are worth a thousand words, allowing people to express a wide range of emotions through emotionless digital platforms like texting and social media. As a result, they have transcended the world of tech and entered our everyday lexicon. But emoji meanings aren’t always as straightforward as they seem, and popular emojis can have several different meanings. (Looking at you, peach emoji. 🍑)

“People tend to project their own meanings onto emojis. Even in general usage, they can mean lots of different things, and the meanings can change over time,” says Keith Broni, editor-in-chief of Emojipedia, the definitive guide to all things emoji. “They often follow trends.” One recent example of that: the cry-laughing face being replaced by the skull emoji to express humor.

As of September 2023, the Unicode Standard (the body that regulates emojis) lists 3,782 emojis—with new emojis being added every year. That’s way more emojis than we can cover and way more than you’re likely to use, so we asked Broni and mined Emojipedia for the most common emojis and their meanings—at least at this moment. Read on to find out if you’ve been using them right or (gulp!) wrong.

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The meanings behind popular emojis

Smiley-face emojis

The red heart emoji is the most popular emoji, but variations on the smiley face take three of the top 10 spots, Broni says. These faces convey nearly any emotion a human face could convey—from disgust to love to “I see something tasty!” The default color is yellow, since it’s seen as a “neutral” skin tone, but you can change your settings to customize them to five different skin tones. Once your preferred emojis are set, you can create shortcuts on your iPhone to access them easily.

Plant and animal emojis

Most animals and plants are used to represent exactly what they are—a tiger will mean tiger, and a flower will mean flower—but they are often used more for their color palette. For instance, the pink flamingo and pink flower are commonly used in captions for pink-themed social media posts. “People often use these to show an affiliation to a hobby, sports team or other group,” Broni says. Fans of the Miami Dolphins football team unsurprisingly use the dolphin emoji. However, some plant and animal emojis have more subtle meanings that you should know.

Food emojis

Like plants and animals, most food emojis aren’t that deep, but there are some that have been co-opted for spicier meanings—and we don’t mean that in a burn-your-mouth kind of way. “Even if you don’t use these regularly, it’s good to know what they mean so you know what other people are really trying to say or so you don’t accidentally make a mistake in a business setting,” Broni says.  

Hand and body-part emojis

Just like in real life, hands and body parts are used to express a wide range of thoughts and feelings. “We often see these used in combination with other emojis to make a new meaning,” Broni says. For example, the pinching hand 🤏 next to the money bag 💰 means someone doesn’t make much money. 

Heart emojis

“The longest article on Emojipedia discusses the heart emoji because there’s just so much you can say with them,” Broni says. It was the first emoji created (in black and white), and as noted earlier, the red heart is the most commonly used emoji. This simple symbol is used to convey so much more than just love! There are more than 40 emojis that use hearts, and each one has a slightly different meaning. While we have a complete guide to all the heart emoji meanings, here are a few highlights you should know.

Miscellaneous emojis

Despite the universally accepted emoji meanings, it’s not uncommon for families, co-workers or friend groups to take an emoji and give it a special meaning, Broni says. Using the emoji can be a bonding experience, showing that you’re “in the know” and a part of the group. Random emojis are often used for these, but here are some miscellaneous emojis with fairly standard meanings.

More emojis

There’s a lot of emoji meanings we didn’t cover here, so if you’re stuck for an emoji, check out Emojipedia. It not only shows how every single emoji ever invented looks on every kind of device and platform, but it also contains a brief explanation of its meaning, history and related emojis, as well as a copy-and-paste box. It’s a (second-best) resource for all your emoji questions, so you don’t accidentally send your boss something better suited for a group chat with your besties. In case the damage has already been done, here’s how to unsend an iMessage.

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Sources:

• Keith Broni, editor-in-chief of Emojipedia; email interview, Jan. 9, 2024
• Emojipedia

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