Meaning
A cheerful feline face with whiskers, pointed ears, and an open-mouthed grin that radiates pure happiness. The design is cartoonish and adorable—think cute cat illustration rather than photorealistic—with bright eyes and an expression that's genuinely joyful. Different platforms render the color and exact expression slightly differently, but the overwhelming impression is one of feline delight and friendliness. It's the cat equivalent of a human beaming smile.
People use the grinning cat to express happiness, excitement, and contentment, especially when discussing cats or pet-related content. Cat lovers deploy it liberally in conversations about their feline friends, cute animal videos, or anything kitten-adjacent. It's also used more broadly as a cute alternative to human smiling emoji, particularly by people who identify strongly with cat culture or prefer expressing emotions through animal faces. The emoji reads as warm, approachable, and genuinely pleased.
Beyond literal cat appreciation, the grinning cat carries associations with feline mischief and playfulness. It can signal a devious smile or knowing humor—cats are often portrayed as clever and slightly unpredictable creatures. On social media, it's popular for expressing that you're pleased about something, found something hilarious, or you're in a genuinely good mood. The expression is infectious and unambiguously positive, making it useful for brightening the tone of messages.
As one of the earliest emoji, the grinning cat was approved in Unicode Emoji 0.6 in 2010, reflecting the universal appeal of cats across cultures and the early internet's deep love for feline imagery.
Common Uses
- • Expressing happiness or contentment
- • Celebrating cat content or pets
- • Cute, friendly responses to messages
- • Showing genuine joy or amusement
Popular Combos
Did You Know?
The cat emoji family (😺😸😹😻😼😽😾😿😸) is one of the most diverse emoji categories, with distinct expressions for nearly every human emotion—making cat emoji a complete emotional toolkit for feline enthusiasts.
Keywords
Appears in Topics
Related Emoji
Technical Reference
Platform Shortcodes
:smiley_cat: :smiley_cat: :smiley_cat: Developer Codes
| HTML (decimal) | 😺 |
| HTML (hex) | 😺 |
| CSS | \1F63A |
| JavaScript | \uD83D\uDE3A |
| Python | \U0001F63A |
| Java | \uD83D\uDE3A |
| Perl | \x{1F63A} |
| PHP / Ruby | \x{1F63A} |
| Punycode | xn--2r7e |
| URL Encoded | %F0%9F%98%BA |
| UTF-8 Bytes | 0xF0 0x9F 0x98 0xBA |
😺 in 28 languages
Names sourced from Unicode CLDR and emojibase.
| Language | Name |
|---|---|
| Bengali | মুখ খোলা অবস্থায় বেড়ালের হাসি মুখ |
| Chinese (Simplified) | 大笑的猫 |
| Chinese (Traditional) | 哈哈 |
| Danish | smilende kat |
| Dutch | grijnzende kat |
| English | grinning cat |
| English (UK) | grinning cat |
| Estonian | avatud suuga naeratav kass |
| Finnish | leveästi hymyilevä kissa |
| French | chat qui sourit |
| German | grinsende Katze |
| Hindi | मुस्काती आँखों वाली बिल्ली का चेहरा |
| Hungarian | nevető macska |
| Italian | gatto che sorride |
| Japanese | にっこり笑う猫 |
| Korean | 활짝 웃는 고양이 얼굴 |
| Lithuanian | besišypsančios katės snukutis |
| Malay | kucing tersengih |
| Norwegian | smilende katt med åpen munn |
| Polish | uśmiechnięty kot |
| Portuguese | rosto de gato sorrindo |
| Russian | улыбающийся кот |
| Spanish | gato sonriendo |
| Spanish (Mexico) | cara de gato sonriendo |
| Swedish | flinande kattansikte |
| Thai | แมวยิ้มอ้าปาก |
| Ukrainian | широко всміхнений кіт |
| Vietnamese | mặt mèo cười tươi |