Rose

Usually romantic interest, stated on purpose. A single red rose from a crush or partner makes affection explicit without spelling it out. If you feel the same, send one back or raise it to ❤️. If you don't, answer the words and skip the flower; that reads as a polite no.

Check who is holding the flower first. Older relatives who send glittery good-morning forwards use 🌹 as decoration, while the same rose from a peer at midnight is a move. Under a sad announcement it is a tribute, not a pass.

Why is there a rose emoji in their Twitter bio?

Possibly politics: the socialist rose. US democratic socialists put 🌹 beside their usernames around 2017 as an affiliation badge, borrowing the red rose that European socialist and social-democratic parties, such as Britain's Labour Party, use as an emblem. Next to political words it points to the movement; next to a partner's initials it just means love. Either way it is a clue, not proof.

Why does a rose mean love at all?

Because centuries of tradition kept giving it new jobs. People grew roses for perfume, rosewater, remedies and food long before they meant anything: possibly in China around 3000 BCE, with the earliest written records from Sumer, in ancient Mesopotamia, by 2200 BCE.

In ancient Greece and Rome the rose belonged to Aphrodite or Venus, goddess of love. In Rome a rose hung over a room marked a confidential talk, and families laid rose garlands on graves. In medieval Europe Christians made it an emblem of the Virgin Mary. Fifteenth-century England fought under rival rose badges, red for Lancaster and white for York. By the Victorian era, books on the 'language of flowers' fixed the red rose as the love gift.

Online it travels well beyond romance. In one small 2018 study of WeChat group chats, 🌹 was the second most-used of 46 emoji, behind only the thumbs-up.