Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A facial glyph, used especially in e-mail and instant messages and sometimes typed sideways, that indicates an emotion or attitude, as [ :-) ] to indicate intended humor.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
graphical representation , either in the form of animage or made up ofASCII characters , of a particular emotion of the writer.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a representation of a facial expression (as a smile or frown) created by typing a sequence of characters in sending email
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Being such a social networking savvy person, you may know what the term emoticon means - it's a textual expression representing the face of a writer's mood or facial expression.
Adpunch 2010
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I never until now realized that the primary job of any emoticon is to say "excuse me, that didn't make any sense."
Boing Boing: September 1, 2002 - September 7, 2002 Archives 2002
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Maybe the word emoticon doesn't ring a bell to you but you probably know what they are.
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The word emoticon is actually the word emotion and icon bumped up together so you get the word emoticon.
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To emoticon, or not to emoticon, that is the question.
Thru Thick and Thin: Connecting - It's All About the People - Kathy Aaronson - MediaBizBloggers 2009
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To emoticon, or not to emoticon, that is the question.
Thru Thick and Thin: Connecting - It's All About the People - Kathy Aaronson - MediaBizBloggers 2009
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For 25 years, the emoticon has been a mainstay of Internet culture.
CNET Australia 2009
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Nothing is achieved when writing ironically or satirically by telling the reader through an "emoticon", that the preceding posting was meant to be to be a wry comment and that the reader should be amused.
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Nothing is achieved when writing ironically or satirically by telling the reader through an "emoticon", that the preceding posting was meant to be to be a wry comment and that the reader should be amused.
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Nothing is achieved when writing ironically or satirically by telling the reader through an "emoticon", that the preceding posting was meant to be to be a wry comment and that the reader should be amused.
oroboros commented on the word emoticon
"An emoticon is a short sequence of keyboard letters and symbols, usually emulating a facial expression, that complements a text message. An abbreviation itself (of emotion icon), the term is sometimes referred to by the name of the original emoticon, the smiley. Mike Jones, who works in the systems and networking research group at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, has determined that the first smiley was posted on September 19, 1982."
April 2, 2008
seanahan commented on the word emoticon
There is no emoticon for what I am feeling.
April 2, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word emoticon
Emoticons for "e-kicking someone in the e-balls."
September 3, 2008
frindley commented on the word emoticon
Possibly the world's earliest emoticon (from 1862) can be examined here.
January 20, 2009