Emoticons is a Unicode block containing emoticons or emoji. Most of them are intended as representations of faces, although some of them include hand gestures or non-human characters (a horned "imp", monkeys, cartoon cats).

The block was first proposed in 2008, and first implemented in Unicode version 6.0 (2010). The reason for its adoption was largely for compatibility with a de facto standard that had been established by the early 2000s by Japanese telephone carriers, encoded in unused ranges with lead bytes 0xF5 to 0xF9 of the Shift JIS standard. KDDI has gone much further than this, and has introduced hundreds more in the space with lead bytes 0xF3 and 0xF4.

Descriptions

1F600😀grinning face
1F601😁grinning face with smiling eyes
1F602😂face with tears of joy
1F603😃smiling face with open mouth (cf. ☺)
1F604😄smiling face with open mouth and smiling eyes
1F605😅smiling face with open mouth and cold sweat
1F606😆smiling face with open mouth and tightly-closed eyes
1F607😇smiling face with halo
1F608😈smiling face with horns (cf. 👿 "imp")
1F609😉winking face
1F60A😊smiling face with smiling eyes
1F60B😋face savouring delicious food
1F60C😌relieved face
1F60D😍smiling face with heart-shaped eyes
1F60E😎smiling face with sunglasses
1F60F😏smirking face
1F610😐neutral face (also used for "west wind" 西 in some Mahjong annotation)
1F611😑expressionless face
1F612😒unamused face
1F613😓face with cold sweat
1F614😔pensive face
1F615😕confused face
1F616😖confounded face
1F617😗kissing face
1F618😘face throwing a kiss
1F619😙kissing face with smiling eyes
1F61A😚kissing face with closed eyes
1F61B😛face with stuck-out tongue
1F61C😜face with stuck-out tongue and winking eye
1F61D😝face with stuck-out tongue and tightly-closed eyes
1F61E😞disappointed face
1F61F😟worried face
1F620😠angry face
1F621😡pouting face
1F622😢crying face
1F623😣persevering face
1F624😤face with look of triumph
1F625😥disappointed but relieved face
1F626😦frowning face with open mouth
1F627😧anguished face
1F628😨fearful face
1F629😩weary face
1F62A😪sleepy face
1F62B😫tired face
1F62C😬grimacing face
1F62D😭loudly crying face
1F62E😮face with open mouth
1F62F😯hushed face
1F630😰face with open mouth and cold sweat
1F631😱face screaming in fear
1F632😲astonished face
1F633😳flushed face
1F634😴sleeping face
1F635😵dizzy face
1F636😶face without mouth (cf. ⚇ "white circle with two dots")
1F637😷face with medical mask
1F638😸grinning cat face with smiling eyes
1F639😹cat face with tears of joy
1F63A😺smiling cat face with open mouth
1F63B😻smiling cat face with heart-shaped eyes
1F63C😼cat face with wry smile
1F63D😽kissing cat face with closed eyes
1F63E😾pouting cat face
1F63F😿crying cat face
1F640🙀weary cat face
1F641🙁slightly frowning face
1F642🙂slightly smiling face
1F643🙃upside-down face
1F644🙄face with rolling eyes
1F645🙅face with "no good" gesture, with lower arms crossed, derived from the Japanese "batsu" two-handed gesture for "no" or "wrong".
1F646🙆face with "ok" gesture, described as a person with arms raised above the head forming a "circle", derived from the Japanese "maru" two-handed gesture for "ok" or "correct".
1F647🙇person bowing deeply (dogeza).
1F648🙈see-no-evil monkey
1F649🙉hear-no-evil monkey
1F64A🙊speak-no-evil monkey
1F64B🙋happy person raising one hand, a person raising one hand as if to answer a question.
1F64C🙌person raising both hands in celebration, on many platforms depicted as just the raised hands (Apple name: "Hands Raised in Celebration").
1F64D🙍person frowning
1F64E🙎person with pouting face
1F64F🙏person with folded hands (to indicate variously sorrow, regret, pleading, praying, bowing, thanking). In most platforms depicted as just the hand, pressed together but not folded (Apple name: "Hands Pressed Together").

Chart

Emoticons[1] (PDF)
0123456789ABCDEF
U+1F60x😀😁😂😃😄😅😆😇😈😉😊😋😌😍😎😏
U+1F61x😐😑😒😓😔😕😖😗😘😙😚😛😜😝😞😟
U+1F62x😠😡😢😣😤😥😦😧😨😩😪😫😬😭😮😯
U+1F63x😰😱😲😳😴😵😶😷😸😹😺😻😼😽😾😿
U+1F64x🙀🙁🙂🙃🙄🙅🙆🙇🙈🙉🙊🙋🙌🙍🙎🙏
Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 17.0

Variant forms

Each emoticon has two variants:

  • U+FE0E (VARIATION SELECTOR-15) selects text presentation (e.g. 😊︎ 😐︎ ☹︎),
  • U+FE0F (VARIATION SELECTOR-16) selects emoji-style (e.g. 😊️ 😐️ ☹️).

If there is no variation selector appended, the default is the emoji-style. Example:

Unicode code pointsResult
U+1F610 (NEUTRAL FACE)😐
U+1F610 (NEUTRAL FACE), U+FE0E (VARIATION SELECTOR-15)😐︎
U+1F610 (NEUTRAL FACE), U+FE0F (VARIATION SELECTOR-16)😐️

Emoji modifiers

The Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block has 54 emoji that represent people or body parts. A set of "Emoji modifiers" are defined for emojis that represent people or body parts. These are modifier characters intended to define the skin colour to be used for the emoji. The draft document suggesting the introduction of this system for the representation of "human diversity" was submitted in 2015 by Mark Davis of Google and Peter Edberg of Apple Inc. Five symbol modifier characters were added with Unicode 8.0 to provide a range of skin tones for human emoji. These modifiers are called EMOJI MODIFIER FITZPATRICK TYPE-1-2, -3, -4, -5, and -6 (U+1F3FB–U+1F3FF): 🏻 🏼 🏽 🏾 🏿. They are based on the Fitzpatrick scale for classifying human skin color.

Human emoji
U+1F6451F6461F6471F64B1F64C1F64D1F64E1F64F
emoji🙅🙆🙇🙋🙌🙍🙎🙏
FITZ-1-2🙅🏻🙆🏻🙇🏻🙋🏻🙌🏻🙍🏻🙎🏻🙏🏻
FITZ-3🙅🏼🙆🏼🙇🏼🙋🏼🙌🏼🙍🏼🙎🏼🙏🏼
FITZ-4🙅🏽🙆🏽🙇🏽🙋🏽🙌🏽🙍🏽🙎🏽🙏🏽
FITZ-5🙅🏾🙆🏾🙇🏾🙋🏾🙌🏾🙍🏾🙎🏾🙏🏾
FITZ-6🙅🏿🙆🏿🙇🏿🙋🏿🙌🏿🙍🏿🙎🏿🙏🏿

Additional human emoji can be found in other Unicode blocks: Dingbats, Miscellaneous Symbols, Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs, Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A and Transport and Map Symbols.

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Emoticons block:

VersionFinal code pointsCountL2 IDWG2 IDDocument
6.0U+1F601..1F610, 1F612..1F614, 1F616, 1F618, 1F61A, 1F61C..1F61E, 1F620..1F625, 1F628..1F62B, 1F62D, 1F630..1F633, 1F635..1F640, 1F645..1F64F63Lommel, Arle (2008-12-26), Comparison of Emoticons from Major Vendors
Scherer, Markus; Davis, Mark; Momoi, Kat; Tong, Darick; Kida, Yasuo; Edberg, Peter (2009-03-05), Proposal for Encoding Emoji Symbols
Scherer, Markus; Davis, Mark; Momoi, Kat; Tong, Darick; Kida, Yasuo; Edberg, Peter (2009-02-06), Emoji Symbols Proposed for New Encoding
Scherer, Markus (2009-09-17), Emoji Symbols: Background Data
Towards an encoding of symbol characters used as emoji, 2009-04-06
Anderson, Deborah (2009-08-15), US Position on PDAM 8
Ogata, Katsuhiro; et al. (2009-10-22), A Proposal to Revise a Part of Emoticons in PDAM 8
Pentzlin, Karl (2009-10-22), Comment on "A proposal to Revise a Part of Emoticons in PDAM 8" (Katsuhiro Ogata et al., N3711)
Suignard, Michel (2009-10-26), Disposition of comments on SC2 N 4078 (PDAM text for Amendment 8 to ISO/IEC 10646:2003)
, )Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2010-04-13), "M55.9j", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting no. 55, Tokyo 2009-10-26/30
Moore, Lisa (2009-11-10), "Consensus 121-C8", UTC #121 / L2 #218 Minutes
Pentzlin, Karl (2010-01-26), Proposal to encode an emoticon Neutral Face
Scherer, Markus; et al. (2010-02-04), "2, 4", Emoji: Review of FPDAM8
Anderson, Deborah (2010-02-05), ANSI (U.S.) NB Comments on FPDAM 8
Moore, Lisa (2010-02-09), "D.1.3", UTC #122 / L2 #219 Minutes
Ogata, Katsuhiro; Kamichi, Koichi; Moro, Shigeki; Kawabata, Taichi; Naoi, Yasushi (2010-03-03), Updated Proposal to Change Some Glyphs and Names of Emoticons
KDDI Input on Emoji, 2010-03-08
Summary of Voting on SC 2 N 4123, ISO/IEC 10646: 2003/FPDAM 8, 2010-03-27
Ogata, Katsuhiro; Kamichi, Koichi; Moro, Shigeki; Kawabata, Taichi; Naoi, Yasushi (2010-04-06), Rationale for Proposal of N3778
Everson, Michael (2010-04-22), Emoticons for FDIS 8
Suignard, Michel (2010-04-22), Disposition of comments on SC2 N 4123 (FPDAM text for Amendment 8 to ISO/IEC 10646:2003)
Scherer, Markus; Davis, Mark; Momoi, Kat; Tong, Darick; Kida, Yasuo; Edberg, Peter (2010-04-27), Emoji Symbols: Background Data
Constable, Peter; et al. (2010-04-27), Emoji Ad-Hoc Meeting Report
Moore, Lisa (2010-05-19), "Consensus 123-C3", UTC #123 / L2 #220 Minutes
, )"M56.01", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting no. 56, 2010-09-24
Davis, Mark; et al. (2015-01-21), Recommended Unicode Glyph / Nameslist changes
Davis, Mark; Burge, Jeremy (2015-02-03), More Unicode Emoji Glyph changes
, )Davis, Mark; Edberg, Peter (2015-03-31), Emoji Glyph and Annotation Recommendations
Moore, Lisa (2015-05-12), "Consensus 143-C20", UTC #143 Minutes, Update chart glyphs and annotations based on L2/15-151 for Unicode 8.0.
Proposed annotation additions for Unicode 9.0, 2015-07-31
Burge, Jeremy; Hunt, Paul (2016-10-17), Emoji Glyph Updates
Pournader, Roozbeh; Felt, Doug (2016-11-07), Add text and emoji standardized variation sequences for 96 symbols
6.1U+1F600, 1F611, 1F615, 1F617, 1F619, 1F61B, 1F61F, 1F626..1F627, 1F62C, 1F62E..1F62F, 1F63413Lommel, Arle (2008-12-26), Comparison of Emoticons from Major Vendors
Scherer, Markus; Davis, Mark; Momoi, Kat; Tong, Darick; Kida, Yasuo; Edberg, Peter (2009-03-05), Proposal for Encoding Emoji Symbols
Scherer, Markus; Davis, Mark; Momoi, Kat; Tong, Darick; Kida, Yasuo; Edberg, Peter (2009-02-06), Emoji Symbols Proposed for New Encoding
Scherer, Markus (2009-09-17), Emoji Symbols: Background Data
Summary of Voting on SC 2 N 4123, ISO/IEC 10646: 2003/FPDAM 8, 2010-03-27
Scherer, Markus; Davis, Mark; Momoi, Kat; Tong, Darick; Kida, Yasuo; Edberg, Peter (2010-04-27), Emoji Symbols: Background Data
Constable, Peter; et al. (2010-04-27), "7", Emoji Ad-Hoc Meeting Report
, )"M56.01", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting no. 56, 2010-09-24
Davis, Mark; et al. (2015-01-21), Recommended Unicode Glyph / Nameslist changes
Davis, Mark; Burge, Jeremy (2015-02-03), More Unicode Emoji Glyph changes
, )Davis, Mark; Edberg, Peter (2015-03-31), Emoji Glyph and Annotation Recommendations
Moore, Lisa (2015-05-12), "Consensus 143-C20", UTC #143 Minutes, Update chart glyphs and annotations based on L2/15-151 for Unicode 8.0.
7.0U+1F641..1F6422Pentzlin, Karl (2010-10-22), Proposal to encode three additional emoticons
Proposal to encode three additional emoticons, 2011-01-03
Whistler, Ken (2011-06-16), "I", WG2 consent docket
"11.6 Three additional emoticons", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 58, 2012-01-03
Gawne, Lauren; Daniel, Jennifer (2022-12-16), Head Shaking Horizontally Unicode Emoji Proposal [Affects U+1F642]
Gawne, Lauren; Daniel, Jennifer (2022-12-16), Head Shaking Vertically Unicode Emoji Proposal [Affects U+1F642]
Daniel, Jennifer (2023-01-25), Recommendations for ZWJ Sequences, Unicode 15.1 [Affects U+1F642]
Constable, Peter (2023-02-01), "G.1.1 Emoji 15.1 Recommendations", UTC #174 Minutes
8.0U+1F643..1F6442Davis, Mark; Edberg, Peter (2014-08-27), Emoji Additions
Davis, Mark; Edberg, Peter (2014-08-29), Proposed enhancements for emoji characters: background
Edberg, Peter; et al. (2014-10-23), Emoji ad-hoc committee recommendations to UTC #141
Edberg, Peter; Davis, Mark (2014-10-28), Emoji-System Compatibility Additions
Anderson, Deborah (2014-10-30), Future Additions to ISO/IEC 10646
Davis, Mark (2015-01-29), Emojipedia top requests

See also

  • Some basic smiley faces (☹, ☺, ☻) are in Miscellaneous Symbols block
  • Some body parts (e.g. ✌️; ⛹; etc) are in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Dingbat blocks
  • Some heads and figures (e.g. 👦; 🛀; etc) are in Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs and Transport and Map Symbols blocks
  • Additional smiley faces (e.g. 🤐, 🤑, etc) are in Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs block