Turkey

The bird, the holiday it stars in, or the roast. Most phones draw it like a male wild turkey showing off: tail spread into a half-circle, bronze feathers, a bare blue-and-red head and a red wattle, the loose flap of skin hanging under the beak. Turkeys are native to North America, and Indigenous peoples in what is now Mexico were raising them long before Europeans arrived. The male's call is the gobble, so people also search for this emoji as "gobble".

Its big moment is Thanksgiving, a harvest-and-gratitude holiday held on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and the second Monday of October in Canada. Many families gather for roast turkey with stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, and Americans nickname the day "Turkey Day"; the US president even ceremonially "pardons" a live turkey each year. In Britain, Ireland and other places where turkey is the Christmas roast, 🦃 comes back in December.

What does it mean when someone sends you 🦃?

Usually a holiday greeting or dinner plans. Around Thanksgiving it reads as "Happy Thanksgiving" or "see you at the table": warm and a little silly. A lone 🦃 is not an invitation, so if it is about a meal, ask for the time. Next to a farm or nature photo it just names the animal. In American English "a turkey" can also mean a flop or a fool, so the words around it decide whether it teases.