: a group of keyboard characters (such as :-)) that typically represents a facial expression or suggests an attitude or emotion and that is used especially in computerized communications (such as email) compare emoji
Examples of emoticon in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the WebPublished in 2012, the text leaps, runs on, includes emoticons and ignores punctuation, just like DMs and text messages.—Matt Brennan, Los Angeles Times, 8 Apr. 2024 When reached for comment by Fortune about his exclusion from Reddit’s S-1 filing, Ohanian replied with a shrug emoticon: ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
Reddit declined to comment.—Paolo Confino, Fortune, 23 Feb. 2024 The humble emoji—and its older cousin, the emoticon—has infiltrated the corporate world, especially in tech.—Lora Kelley, The Atlantic, 30 Dec. 2023 Ellison replied with a sad-face emoticon, which seemed to have understated her emotional volatility.—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 3 Nov. 2023 The new designs feature the band's iconic tongue emoticon and black and red colorways.—People Staff, Peoplemag, 26 June 2023 On November 20, Hsu posted a very suggestive photo of herself with Liu with only a smiley face emoticon in the caption.—Aimée Lutkin, ELLE, 1 June 2023 Decades of texting have seen emoticons made from colon and parenthesis replaced by more obvious and emotive emojis.—Cody Godwin, USA TODAY, 18 Feb. 2023 On June 23, 2004, AVEN adopted cake as an official community emoticon.—Courtney Lane, Bon Appétit, 22 June 2022
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'emoticon.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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