🤧 is the sneezing face: a yellow face with squinting eyes and a tissue held to the nose. It was added to Unicode in 2016. It is the emoji of colds, hay fever and allergy season, and compared with the feverish 🤒 or the masked 😷, it focuses on the nose: stuffy, tickly, running. Its use climbs every spring and every time the weather turns.
How it’s used
- Allergy season: “Pollen count is through the roof today 🤧”
- Colds: “Caught a cold again, sniffling all day 🤧”
- Dust and smoke: “The smoke outside has me sneezing nonstop 🤧”
- Superstition: “Achoo! Someone must be talking about me 🤧”
- Medication jokes: “Took the antihistamine and I’m still a mess 🤧”
If the main complaint is fever, use 🤒; if it is nausea, 🤢; if it is about masks and avoiding spread, 😷. 🤧 is the one that zooms in on the nose and the sneeze.
Korea, Japan and the English-speaking world
In English, the emoji goes with “Bless you,” “Gesundheit,” “hay fever” and “allergy season.” It is common in spring, cold-and-flu season and dusty rooms. Since 2020, a sneezing face has also evoked contagion, so some people think twice about posting it in workplace chats unless they make clear it is just allergies.
In Korea, it is linked to colds, rhinitis and fine dust, and to the superstition that if you sneeze once, someone is talking about you, which people use as a light joke. In group chats during seasonal changes, it is a natural way to say “I’m not feeling great.”
In Japan, it is called くしゃみする顔 and instantly suggests 花粉症 (hay fever), a national spring complaint. It is attached constantly to lines like 花粉がつらい (“pollen is rough”). There is also a proverb: 一褒め二謗り三惚れ四風邪, saying that one sneeze means you are being praised, two means you are being criticized, three means someone is in love with you, and four means you have a cold. It is the Japanese counterpart to the Korean superstition.
Where it gets misread
- The squinting eyes can make it look like 😭 at small sizes. The tissue at the nose is the giveaway.
- Since 2020 it can read as “I might be sick” and cause concern. If it is only pollen, say so.
- It shares a “runny nose in the cold” feeling with 🥶, but the two look entirely different.
- In messages that carry serious health information, a cartoon sneeze can make the tone feel too light.
Design differences by platform
Most platforms draw a yellow face with squinted eyes and a white tissue held to the nose. The tissue’s color and shape, how tightly the eyes are shut and, on some platforms, whether there is any drawn moisture on the tissue vary. Apple’s expression is lively with a clearly textured tissue, Google’s Noto is simple, Microsoft’s Fluent has soft three-dimensional volume, and Samsung’s expression tends to be more exaggerated.
