Meaning
This emoji depicts a bright yellow rectangular sponge with a distinctly porous, grid-like texture covering its surface. The sponge is typically rendered in a cheerful golden-yellow tone with darker lines creating the characteristic square holes that define its absorbent structure—the defining feature that makes it instantly recognizable.
Beyond its literal household cleaning use, the sponge has become popular in digital communication for describing anything absorbent, messy cleanup, or even metaphorically "soaking up" knowledge. You might send it when talking about deep cleaning your space, recovering from a spill, or jokingly referencing how you're absorbing information like a sponge in class or at work.
It's also appeared in meme culture and internet humor, particularly in contexts involving SpongeBob SquarePants references or when someone jokes about being a "sponge" for facts and trivia. The emoji works well in cleaning-related conversations, DIY posts, or when someone's making a pun about absorbency.
While designs are fairly consistent across platforms, the texture and shading details vary slightly—some versions appear softer while others emphasize the grid pattern more boldly. This humble household tool was approved as part of Unicode Emoji 11 in 2018, joining the roster of everyday objects that people find surprisingly useful to express digitally.
Common Uses
- • Talking about cleaning or doing chores
- • Joking about absorbing information
- • SpongeBob references and memes
- • Discussing household supplies or DIY projects
Popular Combos
Did You Know?
The sponge emoji is sometimes used ironically in meme culture to reference SpongeBob SquarePants, even though the character himself isn't a household sponge—it's a running joke among fans.
Keywords
Related Emoji
Technical Reference
Platform Shortcodes
:sponge: :sponge: :sponge: Developer Codes
| HTML (decimal) | 🧽 |
| HTML (hex) | 🧽 |
| CSS | \1F9FD |
| JavaScript | \uD83E\uDDFD |
| Python | \U0001F9FD |
| Java | \uD83E\uDDFD |
| Perl | \x{1F9FD} |
| PHP / Ruby | \x{1F9FD} |
| Punycode | xn--2ry5 |
| URL Encoded | %F0%9F%A7%BD |
| UTF-8 Bytes | 0xF0 0x9F 0xA7 0xBD |
🧽 in 28 languages
Names sourced from Unicode CLDR and emojibase.
| Language | Name |
|---|---|
| Bengali | স্পঞ্জ |
| Chinese (Simplified) | 海绵 |
| Chinese (Traditional) | 海綿 |
| Danish | vaskesvamp |
| Dutch | spons |
| English | sponge |
| English (UK) | sponge |
| Estonian | pesukäsn |
| Finnish | pesusieni |
| French | éponge |
| German | Schwamm |
| Hindi | स्पंज |
| Hungarian | szivacs |
| Italian | spugna |
| Japanese | スポンジ |
| Korean | 스펀지 |
| Lithuanian | kempinė |
| Malay | span |
| Norwegian | svamp |
| Polish | gąbka |
| Portuguese | esponja |
| Russian | губка |
| Spanish | esponja |
| Spanish (Mexico) | esponja |
| Swedish | tvättsvamp |
| Thai | ฟองน้ำ |
| Ukrainian | губка |
| Vietnamese | bọt biển |