Octopus

The animal, the sea, or a joke about having eight arms. A real octopus has eight arms, three hearts, blue blood and skin that changes colour and texture for camouflage. In food posts it means octopus as a dish: Japanese takoyaki (balls of batter with octopus pieces, cooked in a special moulded pan; tako is Japanese for octopus), grilled octopus in Greece, or pulpo a la gallega, the paprika-dusted octopus of Galicia in Spain.

Emoji fonts draw it differently: the colour, the face and even how many arms you can count change from one phone to another. A pink cartoon on one screen and a darker, more realistic octopus on another are the same emoji.

What does it mean when someone sends you 🐙?

Usually literal, or a sigh about juggling too much. After a long to-do list it reads as "I could use a few extra arms." With a photo, it is simply the thing in the photo. Some people play on those hugging arms in affectionate messages, but that is a private joke the surrounding words have to set up, not a standard flirt signal.