a digital icon, a sequence of keyboard symbols, or a handwritten or printed equivalent, that serves to represent a facial expression, as :‐) for a smiling face or ;‐) for a winking face.
Usually smile face a drawing of a face consisting of a usually yellow circle with an upturned curve for a smile and two dots for eyes.
given to smiling; cheerful
depicting a smile
a smiley badge
1985–90
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Her daughter Jazz remembered her as "very smiley and positive".
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
“It’s A No For Me,” he tersely posted on social media, accompanied by a smiley face emoji wearing shades.
From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2026
He also tweeted “Happy!” with a smiley face emoji at 4:19 a.m.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026
At January’s conference, robots, including Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, a 6-foot-2-inch automaton weighing in at just under 200 pounds with a digital smiley face, were the stars.
From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026
I added blue streams that run through the ravines, and then placed my wooden figurines: a sandal, a disc with a smiley face painted on.
From "Clairboyance" by Kristiana Kahakauwila
In the shop’s front window was a single book: “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto” by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, surrounded by signs that read “Forced Out!,”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
“Meta is really at a sort of crossroads moment, even though its business is doing well,” said Minda Smiley, a senior analyst at eMarketer who focuses on social media.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2026
"For years, social media companies have claimed they're hard at work making their platforms safer for kids and teenagers," said Minda Smiley, an analyst at eMarketer.
From Barron's ● Mar. 25, 2026
“We do have a small short clip of video footage that we do believe is the person that we’re looking for,” Smiley said Monday on “Good Morning America.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 15, 2025
Smiley and Lee Roy sat primly with their folks, acting like they didn’t even know us.
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
The original Twitter thread, laden with exclamation points and smileys, aimed to provoke amazement and incredulity.
From New York Times ● Jun. 29, 2021
Yellow smileys painted on the tarmac reminded everyone to keep atwo metres apart.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 24, 2020
Now, though, that record may come down to anodyne emails with smileys at the end.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 24, 2016
These monochromatic buttons share little more than a basic concept with the slickly designed, subtly drop-shaded smileys and figurines we know today.
From Slate ● Dec. 7, 2015
We call them smileys because when you’re done eating all the meat off it, the goat looks like it’s smiling at you from the plate.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
