emoji

Everyday

An emoji is a small picture or face used in text messages, emails and online posts to show a feeling or idea, like a smiling face or a thumbs-up. tree →

In the lessons

In everyday life and digital lessons, people add emojis to messages to show feelings; pupils learn that emojis can be misunderstood and that messages online should be kind. Phrases: send an emoji, a smiley emoji, the heart emoji.

Examples

• She sent me a smiley emoji. tree →
• A thumbs-up emoji means OK. tree →
• I added a heart emoji to my message to Grandma. tree →
• Some emojis can be misunderstood. tree →
• There are emojis for food, animals and weather. tree →
• Don't use emojis to be unkind to people. tree →

Note

Plural: emojis or emoji. Use an: an emoji. The word comes from Japanese (e = picture + moji = character); it is not related to emotion, even though it sounds similar. An emoticon is a face made from keyboard symbols, like :-).