emoji

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 絵文字(えもじ) (emoji), from 絵(え) (e, “picture”) + 文字(もじ) (moji, “character”). The apparent connection to emotion and emoticon is coincidental.

noun

1. A digital graphic icon with a unique code point used to represent a concept, object, person, animal or place, originally used in Japanese text messaging but since adopted internationally in other contexts such as social media. Or, by extension, any non-standard emoji-like image inserted inline in text, i.e. an image emoticon.
   In order to communicate quickly, many mobile phone users use emoji characters (similar to emoticons) while sending messages. Service providers have also created a set of emoji characters and have added support for it. 2002, Language International: The Business Resource for a Multilingual Age, volume 14, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 45
   One of the most exciting announcements at Twitter's Chirp conference this week was "Annotated Tweets". […] The data attached doesn't have to be simple text. Twitter suggests examples such as MIDI data (for music) or emoji (for fancy emoticons). 17 April 2010, Martin Bryant, “Twitter Reveals Details of New ‘Annotated Tweets’ Feature”, in The Next Web, archived from the original on 2017-02-22
   So what do a bunch of dudes with iPhones do when they haven't eaten all day, are waiting at your restaurant table, starving, annoyed, and need to pass the time. They innovate. They bring emojis to life. In public. […] Give it a shot – it's probably the one semi-practical thing you can do with an emoji[…]. 5 April 2011, Sam Biddle, “IRL Emojis: Our New Favourite Way to Waste Time on the Phone”, in Gizmodo, archived from the original on 2013-03-20
   Like any natural language grammar, the distribution of emoji in texts, as well as the construction of phrases and sentences with emoji symbols in them, implies a systematic structure, otherwise it would be impossible to literally "read" the emoji texts. 2017, Marcel Danesi, “Emoji Grammar”, in The Semiotics of Emoji (Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics), London, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 77
   At present, Emoji functions not to replace the linguistic mode, but to complement it – the good old-fashioned English word is not going to be in danger any time soon. Emoji enables, arguably for the first time, a multimodal component to text-based digital communication, providing a code that fills out the communicative message in the linguistic mode, conveyed through text. 2017 August, Vyvyan Evans, “What’s in a Word?”, in The Emoji Code: The Linguistics behind Smiley Faces and Scaredy Cats, 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Picador, page 102
   Apple wants to introduce new emojis to better represent people with disabilities. A guide dog, a wheelchair user and prosthetic limbs are just some of the symbols it's suggested. 24 March 2018, “Apple Wants to Introduce New Emojis for Disabled People”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 2018-07-09