Alternatively known as a smiley face, smiles, wink, or winky, an emoticon is a way to show emotion on text-based communication (e.g., e-mail, chat, and SMS) using letters or symbols. For example, :-) (colon, hyphen, and close parenthesis) when your head is turned to the left represents a smiley. The smiley face is often credited as being first suggested by Professor Scott Fahlman on a bulletin board on September 19, 1982, when he made the below post.

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-) From: Scott E Fahlman I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use :-(

Below is a listing of some commonly-used emoticons and a description of what they represent.

Chat terms, Computer portmanteaus, Emoji, Emote