emoticon

«emoticon» in Mova's school dictionary: A small face made from keyboard symbols, like :-) or :(… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

noun (an emoticon, emoticons)

meaning for a pupil

1) A small face made from keyboard symbols, like :-) or :(, used in messages to show a feeling. tree →

2) (informal) An emoji: a little picture showing a face or thing. tree →

sense in the lessons

In computing and online safety lessons, emoticons add feeling to messages; they help show if someone is joking, but can be misunderstood; phrases: «add an emoticon», «a smiley emoticon».

examples

• She ended her message with a smiley emoticon :-). tree →
• Emoticons were invented before emojis. tree →
• Turn your head sideways to see the emoticon's face. tree →
• A wink emoticon ;-) shows that you are joking. tree →
• Don't use too many emoticons in a formal email. tree →
• The emoticon :( shows that you are sad. tree →

note

Countable. Made from «emotion» + «icon». Strictly, emoticons are made of keyboard characters; emojis are small pictures. The first known emoticon :-) was suggested in 1982.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «emoticon» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.