Broccoli

Broccoli, vegetables in general, and the virtuous choice at dinner. The picture is a single head of broccoli: a thick pale-green stalk topped by a dark, bumpy crown of florets, drawn like a tiny tree. Broccoli is a member of the cabbage family, eaten for its tight, unopened flower buds. It was bred in Italy, and its name is Italian too: broccoli is the plural of broccolo, from brocco, a shoot or sprout.

In messages it does plain food work: a grocery list, a recipe, a photo of a stir-fry, a vegan or vegetarian menu, a report that someone finally cooked something green. It is also shorthand for healthy eating as a whole. Next to 🍕 or 🍔 it marks the sensible option; in a gym chat it signals clean eating, since chicken, rice and broccoli is the cliché bodybuilder meal. Broccoli is also the classic vegetable children refuse, so parents use 🥦 to nag and kids use it to groan.

What does it mean when someone sends 🥦?

Almost always food: a meal, a diet, or a reminder to eat vegetables. A friend sending 🥦 after the gym is saying they ate well. A parent sending it is saying eat your greens. A flatmate sending it with 🛒 wants you to pick some up. Nothing hidden in any of that.

The exception is slang. In American English, "broccoli" has long been street slang for cannabis, because a bud looks a little like a floret, and the emoji inherited the meaning. Rapper D.R.A.M.'s 2016 hit "Broccoli" spread the word far beyond the United States. When 🥦 sits beside 💨, 🔥, 🍃 or talk of rolling and smoking, it probably means weed. On its own, or with a dinner photo, it does not.

There is one lighter tease. In the early 2020s teenage boys made the "broccoli haircut" popular: a mop of permed curls on top with shaved sides, which looks exactly like the emoji. Dropping 🥦 under someone's selfie is a joke about the hair, not an invitation to lunch.