Smiling Face With Tear 🥲

A smiling face with eyes either closed or slightly crinkled in joy, paired with a single tear rolling down the cheek—a nuanced expression of bittersweet emotion that captures both happiness and sadness simultaneously. The tear is often depicted in blue or clear, sitting beneath an otherwise joyful expression.

This emoji perfectly captures the complexity of real human emotion: pride mixed with emotion, joy tinged with nostalgia, gratitude that overwhelms you, or happiness so intense it brings tears. People use it when something means so much it makes them cry happy tears, when they're proud of someone and feeling sentimental, or when they're relieved something difficult is finally over.

It's become essential for moments that don't fit neatly into "happy" or "sad"—like watching your best friend accomplish their dream and being too moved to speak, or finally finishing something you've worked on forever. On social media, it's used to acknowledge emotional moments that are positive but heavy with feeling.

Designs vary slightly across platforms, with some emphasizing the smile more and others the tear, but the intention remains universally understood. This emoji was approved as part of Unicode Emoji 13.0 in 2020, marking its emergence as a crucial tool for expressing the full spectrum of human emotion—particularly that bittersweet space where joy and tears coexist.