emoticon
ih-MOH-tih-kon
/ɪˈmoʊ.tɪ.kɒn/
A representation of a facial expression built out of keyboard punctuation marks and characters.
Refers strictly to text-based face combinations like :-) or :-P, widely popular on early internet forums prior to modern color emojis.
The story behind the word. Coined in the early 1980s by combining 'emotion' and 'icon'. Computer scientist Scott Fahlman proposed :-) and :-( on Carnegie Mellon message boards in 1982 to help readers tell jokes from serious arguments.
Word relationships
- smiley: Smiley often refers specifically to happy facial expressions created with characters.
Commonly confused with
- emoji: Emoticons are typed using punctuation marks, whereas emojis are full visual image glyphs.
Collocations
- classic emoticon
- text emoticon
- type an emoticon
Example sentences
- "Before graphical icons were supported, internet users typed a simple emoticon like :-) to convey humor." Internet History
Memory hook
EMOTIon + iCON = EMOTICON built from punctuation. Text punctuation turned into faces.
When not to use
Do not use to describe rendered graphical picture icons.
Fun facts
- The original post proposing the first emoticon was lost for 20 years until researchers managed to restore backup tapes in 2002.
Explore more words
avatar, copypasta, grimace, expression, subscript, expressive
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