The term emoji combines the Japanese words “e,” meaning picture, and “moji,” meaning character.
Although emoji are now used worldwide, the word comes from Japanese and describes a pictorial character used in electronic communication. The resemblance to the English word “emotion” is coincidental; emoji was formed from Japanese components rather than from the word emoticon.
That distinction matters because emoticons use ordinary keyboard characters, such as :-) or ;-) to suggest a facial expression. Emoji are encoded characters or sequences that can depict faces, objects, animals, activities, flags and other concepts. Kaomoji are another related Japanese style, using punctuation and kana to create faces such as (^_^).
Emoji became globally familiar after Japanese mobile-phone services developed pictorial symbols and later platforms adopted standardized Unicode encoding. Their designs vary by platform, but the Japanese-origin term remains the international name for the system of pictorial characters.