Cow

Almost always a real cow, dairy, or farm life. The dairy cow emoji turns up with photos of grazing animals, holiday snaps from the countryside, and talk about milk, butter and cheese. Children's messages and parenting chats use it for farm visits and animal games, and it stands in for the sound itself: moo.

Strictly, a cow is an adult female of domestic cattle; a bull is an adult male, an ox is a castrated male trained for work. In messages nobody checks: 🐄 covers cattle in general, from a herd on a hillside to the source of a steak. The design is the familiar black-and-white Holstein pattern on most phones, which is why it reads as a milk cow rather than a beef breed.

The cow is also one of the most culturally loaded animals there is. In Hinduism the cow is revered, and killing cattle is banned in many Indian states, so for hundreds of millions of people 🐄 carries respect rather than farm humour. In English the word has drifted the other way: “cow” is a long-standing insult for a woman, strongest in British, Australian and New Zealand usage, while “cash cow” means a reliable money-maker and “holy cow!” is pure surprise.

Is someone being rude if they send me 🐄?

Only if it is pointed at a person; about animals or food it is harmless. Under a farm photo or next to a glass of milk the emoji means exactly what it shows. Sent in reply to something you said about yourself, or in the middle of an argument, it may be the “you cow” jab, which attacks a woman's temper or weight depending on the speaker. Between close friends the same emoji can be affectionate teasing, but the emoji alone never proves that, so judge by the words and the relationship.