Melon

A whole muskmelon with a netted green rind. The emoji is a round melon covered in the fine cross-hatched webbing you see on cantaloupes and muskmelons, usually with a short stem on top. Designs vary from one phone to another, and some add a cut wedge, so the emoji doesn't settle whether you mean cantaloupe, honeydew or rockmelon. Think of it as the generic sweet melon from the fruit aisle, the one you buy whole, chill, and cut into wedges.

The green colour and the netting come from Japan, where the emoji was born on mobile phones. There, “melon” means this exact fruit: a netted muskmelon with pale green flesh, the most expensive thing in the greengrocer's window. Perfect specimens are sold one at a time in padded gift boxes, given to hosts, hospital patients and business contacts, and the melon flavour turns up everywhere, from bright green melon soda to melon ice cream. That is why 🍈 looks like a luxury green ball rather than an orange American cantaloupe.

In everyday messages it does the plain job: a shopping list, a fruit salad, a breakfast photo, a farmers' market haul, a heatwave snack, or a melon-flavoured drink or candy you want to recommend. Next to 🍉, 🍇 and 🍑 it simply says summer fruit.

What does it mean when someone sends 🍈?

Almost always fruit; occasionally a cheeky body joke. In most chats a melon is a melon. But English speakers have called breasts “melons” for generations, so a 🍈 that arrives under a selfie, in flirty banter, or as a reply to a comment about someone's figure is a wink, not a snack. The words around it tell you which: a recipe, a market or a lunch photo means fruit, while a lone melon after a compliment on someone's body means the joke. If you're the one sending, keep it with food unless you are sure the other person will laugh.