Which emoji shows embarrassment?
There is no emoji named "embarrassed", so people reach for the blush. Flushed Face (Unicode 6.0, 2010) is the main one: wide eyes and red cheeks, caught out, flustered, "did I really just say that". Because the eyes are so wide it also reads as shock, so the message around it decides. Face with Peeking Eye (Emoji 14.0, 2021) is the newer embarrassed emoji with hands: one eye peeking between the fingers, the face that cannot look but has to. It is the one people mean by "the new embarrassed emoji" on iPhone, where it arrived with iOS 15.4 in 2022.
The sweat faces are the nervous side of embarrassment. Grinning Face with Sweat is the awkward laugh, "hahaโฆ oops"; the single drop comes from manga, where a sweat drop on the temple means nervousness. Downcast Face with Sweat is the heavier version, head down, and Grimacing Face is the bared-teeth wince for "yikes, that was awkward". Melting Face (also 14.0) is embarrassment so complete you dissolve into the floor, and Hot Face works for a blush that is really burning. When the mistake is plainly your own, Person Facepalming says it without a word.
Shy emoji: , and the blushing smiles
Shyness in emoji is softer and cuter. Pleading Face (Unicode 11.0, 2018), with its big glossy eyes, is the face for a timid request or a tender "aww"; in Japan it is nicknamed pien. Put after it and you have the shy fingers combo , two index fingers pressed together the way a bashful anime character fidgets. It spread across TikTok and Twitter around 2020 and is now the standard way to ask for something while pretending you are not asking.
Smiling Face with Smiling Eyes and Smiling Face both carry rosy cheeks on most platforms, which is why so many people search for them as the blushing emoji: warm, a little shy, pleased. Face with Hand Over Mouth is the giggle behind the hand, teasing or coy, and Biting Lip (14.0) is nervous anticipation, often with a crush in the picture. Smiling Face with Hearts is the blush that comes from being adored, Face Holding Back Tears the shy kind of being touched, and Cherry Blossom is the soft pink that decorates shy captions and bios.
Hiding, cringing and wanting to disappear
See-No-Evil Monkey is the most-sent hiding emoji: paws over the eyes, "I can't watch" or "I'm too embarrassed to look". It is one of the three wise monkeys carved at the Tลshล-gลซ shrine in Nikkล, Japan, with covering its ears and covering its mouth; doubles as "oops, I shouldn't have said that". All three have been emoji since Unicode 6.0.
For wishing the ground would open there is Hole, usually right after or , and Dotted Line Face, the face fading out of the room. Face Without Mouth is the awkward silence, Cricket is the chirping after a joke lands on nothing, and Person Standing is standing there awkwardly with nothing to say. Face in Clouds is checked out, lost in the fog, hoping nobody noticed.
Awkward emoji for nervous moments
A thin polite smile is its own kind of awkward: Slightly Smiling Face can mean "this is fine" when it is not, and Upside-Down Face is the smile of someone pretending the embarrassing thing did not happen. Face with Open Eyes and Hand Over Mouth is the gasp, "oh no, did I do that"; it was added in Emoji 14.0 because was drawn as a giggle on some platforms and as a shocked face on others, so the two meanings finally got separate emoji.
Anxious Face with Sweat, Confounded Face and Persevering Face are the squirming faces for cringing at a memory or sitting through something painful, and Shaking Face (Emoji 15.0, 2022) is nervous trembling. The drops on their own, Sweat Droplets and the single Droplet, add nervous sweat to any face: is a classic flustered pair.
Embarrassed emoji text: blushing kaomoji
Where emoji do not show, or when you want the Japanese text-face look, the blush is drawn with symbols. In manga a blush is a few diagonal strokes across the cheeks, so kaomoji use slashes: ( โขฯโข ) and ( > < ) put fraction slashes around the eyes and mouth. The ditto mark ใ makes rounder cheeks in (ใฯใ) and , the Greek ฯ is the cat-like mouth, โข and are eyes, and แต are shy little smiles, and เน and ๏ฝก stand in for cheeks in faces like (เนโขแตโขเน) and (๏ฝกโขแตโข๏ฝก). The parts are in the grid above, so you can copy a face or build your own; for hundreds more faces see Kaomoji Symbols and Cute & Kawaii Symbols.
To find the emoji on a keyboard: on iPhone and Android, tap the search field in the emoji keyboard and type flushed, peek or blush; on Windows press Win .; on a Mac press Ctrl Cmd Space. In Slack and Discord the shortcodes are :flushed:, :see_no_evil:, :sweat_smile:, :grimacing:, :pleading_face: and :melting_face:.
Symbols
46Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Hiding and wanting to disappear
How to use them
6 situationsClick to copyEmbarrassed & Shy Emoji combos
15Worth knowing
- The three monkeys are Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru, a 17th-century carving at the Tลshล-gลซ shrine in Nikkล; their names pun on -zaru, an old negative ending, and saru, the Japanese word for monkey.
- is one of the oldest smileys in computing: was character 1 of the IBM PC's original code page in 1981, long before Unicode added it in 1993 and before emoji existed.
- exists because of . The hand-over-mouth face was drawn giggling on some platforms and gasping on others, so Emoji 14.0 added a separate open-eyed gasp in 2021.
- The drop on and is sweat, not a tear: it is the manga convention for a nervous character, which is also why is named Sweat Droplets.
- The blush lines in kaomoji like ( โขฯโข ) are fraction slashes, a typographic character meant for writing fractions like 12.
Questions people ask
8Is there an embarrassed emoji?
Not by that name. Flushed Face is the one most people use for embarrassment, with peeking face, nervous grin, grimace, melting face and the hiding monkey for different shades of it.
How do I copy and paste embarrassed emoji?
Tap or click any face on this page to copy it, then paste it into WhatsApp, Instagram, Discord or a text. The combos copy as a whole line.
What is the shy emoji?
Pleading Face, usually with the shy fingers , is the shy emoji people search for. , and are the softer blushing kind.
What does mean?
A shy or sheepish request: "can I ask you something?" or "please don't be mad". The fingers come from the anime pose of a bashful character fidgeting.
What does the blushing emoji mean from a girl or a guy?
and mean warm and pleased, often a little flirty; means flustered or caught off guard. Read it with the rest of the message, not alone.
What is the embarrassed emoji with hands?
Face with Peeking Eye (one eye showing between the fingers) and or with a hand over the mouth; has the monkey's paws over its eyes and is the facepalm.
What does mean?
Peeking through your fingers: too embarrassed or scared to look, but looking anyway. It is also used for sneaking a glance at something you shouldn't.
How do I make an embarrassed face in text?
Use blushing kaomoji: (ใฯใ), ( โขฯโข ) or (๏ฝกโขแตโข๏ฝก), built from the symbols in the grid; the classic emoticon is : and the sweat-drop ; works too.
