Eggplant Emoji ๐: Meaning, Uses & Combos
Someone just sent you a ๐ and you are not sure whether they mean dinner, a joke, or something flirtier. Most of the time, the eggplant emoji is doing double duty: it is literally a purple vegetable, and it is also the internet’s most famous wink. The sentence around it tells you which one it is.
The ๐ emoji has been a punchline, a meme, and a recipe ingredient all at once for over a decade. This guide covers the eggplant emoji’s real meanings in texting, real chat examples, lookalike comparisons, copy-paste combos, and the situations where sending it will land badly.
Unicode: U+1F346 ยท Also called: aubergine ยท Category: Food & Drink ยท Added in Unicode 6.0 (2010)
What does ๐ mean in texting?
- A literal eggplant or aubergine. The official meaning is simply the vegetable: eggplant parmesan, baba ganoush, ratatouille, stir-fries, and garden harvests. If the message is about cooking or shopping, the eggplant emoji is just dinner.
- A flirty or suggestive joke. Because of its shape, ๐ is widely used as a cheeky stand-in in flirty adult conversations, usually paired with the peach ๐ or sweat droplets ๐ฆ. Among adults who know each other well, it is a wink, not a word, and that is exactly why it can be awkward with the wrong person.
- A meme about the joke itself. The eggplant emoji is so famous for its second meaning that people now use it ironically: to roast juvenile humor, to caption a purple vegetable with a knowing grin, or to signal “yes, I know what this looks like.” The joke about the joke is now a meaning of its own.
The eggplant’s double life is no accident of the internet age. In Japan, dreaming of an eggplant on the first night of the New Year is considered good luck, and the vegetable has long been a symbol of abundance. Online, though, its shape did the talking: by 2015 the eggplant was so associated with suggestive content that Instagram limited searches for its hashtag, and the American Dialect Society named it the most notable emoji of that year.
Examples of ๐ in real chats
Talking about dinner
Friend: Making eggplant parmesan tonight ๐๐ง
You: Save me a plate! That is my favorite comfort food
Joking with a close friend
Friend: Look at this giant eggplant from my garden ๐๐
You: Okay, we all see it. Very mature of you to post that
A flirty text between partners
You: Dinner was great, but dessert though ๐๐
Friend: You are impossible. Come home and we will talk about it
๐ vs ๐ฅ vs ๐: what is the difference?
| Emoji | Meaning | Vibe |
|---|---|---|
| ๐ | An eggplant, literal vegetable, or a flirty joke | Cheeky, famous, instantly recognizable |
| ๐ฅ | A cucumber, salad ingredient, or a similar joke | Quieter, greener, less loaded than ๐ |
| ๐ | A peach, fruit, or the classic partner to ๐ | Sweet on the surface, suggestive in a pair |
Think of it this way: ๐ is the headliner, ๐ฅ is the understudy, and ๐ is the duet partner. For more food-emoji meanings, our plant emoji guide and tongue emoji guide cover two more symbols that rarely mean just one thing.
Popular ๐ combos to copy
- ๐๐ง, eggplant parmesan night
- ๐๐, ratatouille or pasta dinner
- ๐๐ฑ, garden harvest, homegrown pride
- ๐๐, the classic flirty pair (adults only)
- ๐๐ฆ, cheeky and suggestive, know your audience
- ๐๐, “yes, I know what this looks like”
- ๐๐, purple vegetable patch, autumn cooking
- ๐๐จโ๐ณ, chef mode, cooking up something good
A small platform note: the eggplant looks slightly different everywhere. Apple shows a glossy, deep-purple fruit tilted diagonally with a bright green leafy crown; Google’s version is a little rounder and more cartoonish. The silhouette is unmistakable on every screen, which is exactly why the joke travels so well.
When not to use the ๐ emoji
Do not send ๐ to coworkers, teachers, clients, or anyone you do not know well, even as a joke about dinner, the second meaning arrives first in most readers’ minds, and it can read as flirtation or harassment. It is also a bad pick for professional food content unless the context is unmistakably a recipe, and never use it with minors, even jokingly. Save the eggplant emoji for recipes with friends who get the humor, and for private conversations where the flirty meaning is welcome and mutual.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does ๐ mean from a girl or a guy?
It means the same thing regardless of who sends it: a vegetable, a flirty joke, or a meme about the joke. The official reference at Emojipedia’s eggplant page lists the aubergine first, and context, not gender, decides whether it is literal or suggestive.
Is the ๐ emoji rude?
It can be. Sent suggestively to someone who did not invite that tone, ๐ reads as crude or inappropriate. Between consenting adults who share the joke, it is playful. If you would not say the flirty version out loud to that person, do not send the emoji.
Why is the eggplant emoji so famous?
Its shape made it the internet’s go-to suggestive symbol in the mid-2010s, and the fame fed on itself: news coverage, an Instagram hashtag crackdown in 2015, and endless memes turned a vegetable into a cultural shorthand. Even people who never use it suggestively recognize the joke instantly.
What does ๐๐ mean together?
Together, ๐๐ is the classic flirty pair, the eggplant and the peach standing in for two people. It is almost never about a fruit salad. If you receive it from a stranger, it is a come-on; from a partner, it is a joke you are both in on.
Can I use ๐ in a recipe post?
Yes, but pair it with other food emojis like ๐ง or ๐ so the cooking context is obvious. A lone ๐ in a caption invites the joke; a ๐ surrounded by ingredients reads as dinner. For another food-adjacent guide, see our water droplet emoji guide.
What is the eggplant emoji’s Unicode name?
Its official Unicode name is “Aubergine,” the British word for eggplant, and its codepoint is U+1F346. It was approved in Unicode 6.0 in 2010 and has been part of the emoji set ever since.
Final thoughts
The ๐ emoji is dinner and a double entendre in one purple package: a vegetable when the chat is about food, a wink when it is not, and a meme when everyone is in on the joke. Read the room before you send it, and when in doubt, let the recipe do the talking. Want more combos to copy? Grab them from Copy Emojis or decode another symbol with the Emoji & Slang Decoder.









