Crossword Dictionary
emoticon
emoticon - n
a representation of a facial expression (as a smile or frown) created by typing a sequence of characters in sending email; ":-( and :-) are emoticons"
An emoticon, short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote,[citation needed]is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a person's feelings, mood or reaction, or as a time-saving method.
The first ASCII emoticons are generally credited to computer scientist Scott Fahlman, who proposed what came to be known as "smileys" – :-) and :-( – in a message on the bulletin board system (BBS) of Carnegie Mellon University in 1982. In Western countries, emoticons are usually written at a right angle to the direction of the text. Users from Japan popularized a kind of emoticon called kaomoji, utilizing the larger character sets required for Japanese, that can be understood without tilting one's head to the left. This style arose on ASCII NET of Japan in 1986.