Emoji Faces Meanings

If you have a smartphone, chances are that you use emoji. With the rise of social media and instant messaging apps like Kik and SnapChat, emoji have become a standard and accepted component of text conversations. Currently, as many as 1,851 emoji characters are supported by various platforms and they play an important role in adding context to text conversations.

Express Yourself

Keep in mind that the appearance of emoji can vary by platform, as the images are specific to each particular system. These are some of the most common expressions across a number of platforms.

Emoji	Description	Use
	Tears of joy and happiness	For when something is so funny, you're literally laughing out loud
	Smiley face	Use to express happiness or joy
	Smiley face with open mouth	Indicating extreme happiness or joy
	Smiley face with sunglasses	For when you feel self-confident and cool
	Winking face	Use to express humor or to indicate that you are joking
	Relieved face	Showing relief, satisfaction or feeling at ease
	Pouty face	An expression of anger or rage
	Blushing face	For when you want to show embarrassment or self-deprecation
	Smirking face	Offering a sexual suggestion or innuendo
	Face with halo	An indication of innocence (sometimes sarcastically)
	Face with horns	For when you are feeling michievious or wicked
	Face with heart eyes	Use to express feelings of romance, love and affection
	Smiling face with open mouth and cold sweat	For when you are relieved with happiness or joy
	Winking face with tongue sticking out	To express a sense of fun or playfulness
	Savoring delicious food face	For when you are discussing delicious food
	Suspecting face	Use to express dissatisfaction or suspicion
	Face with cold sweat	An expression of hard work or great effort
	Face with tears streaming	For when you are feeling lots of pain or sadness
	Tired face	Indicating that you are tired, stressed or just fed up
	Confused face	When you are puzzled by the situation
	Frustrated face	Use to express anger, annoyance or dissatisfaction
	Astonished face	For when you are incredibily surprised or shocked
	Grimacing face	Use to express awkwardness, nervousness, or excitement
	Disappointed face	For when you are disappointed or confused
	Hugging face	Used for giving a virtual hug to someone you care about
	Grinning face with smiling eyes	An expression of extreme happiness
	Screaming in fear	Use to express feelings of terror or shock
	Sleeping face	For when you want to be sleeping or are going to sleep
	Face with rolling eyes	Use to express disdain, contempt or boredom
	Sleepy face with drool	For when you are feeling sleepy or tired
	Person with folded hands	Use to show that you are praying or bowing
	Weary cat face	A fun way to show you feel tired or sleep-deprived
	Imp	The cheeky devil is used when you say something slightly rude or disrespectful in a funny way
	Smiling face with horns	When you feel sinister or have the desire to cause trouble
	Sleuth or spy	For when you are investigating or going to investigate something
	Throwing a kiss	Blowing a kiss to express love
	Neutral face	For when you have no comment and are keeping a straight face
	Tongue sticking out	For when you are just kidding or joking
	Face with medical mask	When you are sick and what you have is contagious
	Face with thermometer	For when you feel sick or unwell
	Nauseated face	For when you are so sick you want to throw up or have already thrown up
	Dizzy face	Can be used to indicated dizziness or if you are drunk
	Face with no mouth	Use to indicate you are not saying anything
	See no evil monkey	For when you are mad that you did not realize something obvious, so you slap yourself on the forehead
	Splashing sweat symbol	For when you are so hot, you are literally sweating
	Upside down face	Use to express ambiguity
	Zipper-mouth face	Use when you have a secret and your lips are sealed
	Nerd face	For when you are feeling nerdy or like a bookworm

Put Your Best Face Forward

These emoji faces are a fun and quick way to express yourself over text messages. While there are no hard and fast rules for when to use them, there are a few unwritten rules of emoji etiquette that should be followed.

• Emoji should typically be used to complement words or a conversation, not as a substitute for words.
• Emoji are not universal, so be aware that they can be misinerpreted by the recipient.
• Emoji are indicitive of more casual conversation. If you choose to use emoji in the workplace, keep in mind that less is more. Only use emoji at work when their context and meaning are completely clear.
• When discussing a serious subject, it's probably best to not use emoji at all. For example, in case of a family emergency, use fewer images and more words.

Keep It Personal

If in doubt, choose whether to use emoji and which ones to use based on your personal relationship with the other person in the conversation. But love them or hate them, emojis are here to stay!