What Does 🥹 Mean? The Holding Back Tears Emoji Explained
The 🥹 emoji is officially named 'Face Holding Back Tears.' People often use it for being moved, grateful, proud, or bittersweet, but the surrounding message decides which reading fits.
What 🥹 Means
The 🥹 emoji officially means 'Face Holding Back Tears' — a face with slightly upturned eyes, a quivering lip, and the look of someone trying not to cry.
In practice, people use it for: being overwhelmed by something heartwarming, feeling touched or moved by something, expressing gratitude or appreciation, a mix of happiness and sadness (bittersweet feeling).
How People Actually Use 🥹
'This video of a dog seeing its owner return from deployment 🥹' — expressing touching emotion
'You remembered my favorite order 🥹' — gratitude and being touched
'Last day of summer break 🥹' — bittersweet nostalgia
'My best friend is moving across the country 🥹' — sad but supportive
🥹 vs 🥺 — What's the Difference?
🥺 Pleading Face — more explicitly asking for something, puppy-dog eyes, begging.
🥹 Holding Back Tears — moved by emotion, touched, trying to keep it together.
Think of 🥺 as wanting something, and 🥹 as being overwhelmed by feeling something.
When Was 🥹 Added?
Unicode included 🥹 in Emoji 14.0, released in September 2021. Device and app support arrived on different schedules, so availability depends on the receiving software.
“Context is part of the meaning; the same emoji can land differently in a different conversation.”
PasteMoji editorial principle
How this article was made
Where the article makes a Unicode naming or version claim, we check it against an official Unicode chart. Usage examples are editorial interpretations organized by conversational context, not universal definitions.
- Confirm the official character or sequence name when that fact is relevant.
- Separate the standardized identity of the emoji from informal social meanings.
- Group examples by tone, relationship, and surrounding words.
- Flag interpretations that can change across communities or situations.
Limitations
- Emoji meaning changes with wording, sender-recipient relationship, culture, age group, community, and platform rendering.
- Unicode standardizes characters and sequences; it does not prescribe every slang or emotional interpretation.
Review disclosure: the named reviewer is the same internal editorial organization as the author, not an independent subject-matter expert.
Sources and citations
[1] Emoji Recently Added, v14.0
Unicode Consortium
Supports: The official Emoji 14.0 names and release set, including Face Holding Back Tears, Melting Face and Heart Hands.
[2] Full Emoji List
Unicode Consortium
Supports: Official emoji names, sequences, versions and representative vendor renderings.
Corrections
No correction note accompanies this edition. If we materially correct a factual error, we add a dated note and follow our corrections policy.