An emoji (/ɪˈmoÊŠdÊ’i/ im-OH-jee; plural emoji or emojis; Japanese: 絵文å—, pronounced [emoꜜʑi]) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversation as well as to replace words as part of a logographic system.
The first emoji sets were created by Japanese portable electronic device companies in the late 1980s and the 1990s. The word emoji comes from Japanese e (çµµ; 'picture') + moji (æ–‡å—; 'character') and originally meant 'pictograph'; the resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental. Emoji became increasingly popular worldwide in the 2010s after Unicode began encoding emoji into the Unicode Standard. They are now considered to be a large part of popular culture in the West and around the world. In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries named the emoji U+1F602 😂 FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY its word of the year.