An emoticon, short for emotion icon, 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, without needing to describe it in detail.
Cover of the French magazine Le Charivari, text of a legal ruling against it in the shape of a pear, 1834
Transcript of a speech by Abraham Lincoln in 1862
Telegraphische Zeichenkunst in the German Deutsche Postzeitung, 16 November 1896.
A Kaomoji painting in Japan
A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. According to one set of controversial theories, these movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information between humans, but they also occur in most other mammals and some other animal species.
An actor acting out Drama Masks (Thalia and Melpomene) in 1972
A boy displays an angry pout.