Are these emojis free to use commercially?

OpenMoji is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (attribution + share-alike). Twemoji graphics are CC-BY 4.0 (attribution). Noto Emoji is OFL (no attribution required, but appreciated). We list the credits at the bottom of every detail card.

Why do some emojis look different on my phone vs the website?

Each operating system ships its own emoji font (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung). The catalog can render four open-source styles instead, plus your system font, so you can compare and pick the one that matches your audience best.

How do shortcodes work?

Shortcodes are short text aliases like :grinning: that GitHub, Slack and Discord expand into emojis. Each detail card lists the supported shortcodes; the search box also accepts them directly.

What is the Emoji Kitchen?

Many emojis can be combined with a special "Zero-Width Joiner" character so that systems render them as one fused emoji — for example, 👨 + 👩 + 👧 = 👨👩👧. The Kitchen lets you experiment with these combinations and copy the result.

Can I print a cheatsheet for my classroom?

Yes. Open any category and use the print button — it prints all emojis from that category onto an A4 sheet. You can also multi-select your own subset, or print a single emoji as a large poster.

Why is my Arabic showing English emoji names?

The Unicode CLDR project does not yet ship Arabic translations for emoji names — only English fallbacks are available. As soon as CLDR Arabic lands we will switch to it automatically.

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💭 thought balloon

Copy, download and learn what thought balloon means

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Native (your system)

Openmoji

Twemoji

Noto

Unicode details

Codepoint: U+1F4AD
Shortcodes: :thought_balloon:
Emoji version: Emoji 1
Category: smileys & emotion · emotions
Tags: balloon, bubble, cartoon, cloud, comic, daydream, decisions, dream, idea, invent, invention, realize, think, thoughts, wonder

What does this emoji mean?

Belongs to the «smileys & emotion» category, subgroup «emotions». Added to the Unicode standard in Emoji 1.

Similar emojis

Graphics: OpenMoji (CC BY-SA 4.0), Twemoji (CC-BY 4.0), Noto Emoji (OFL). Names and tags from the Unicode CLDR via emojibase-data (MIT).

Published 08 May 2026