Emoji Dictionary

🏩 Love Hotel emoji

[luhv hoh-tel or hart hos-pi-tl ih-moh-jee]

September 21, 2018

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What does 🏩 Love Hotel emoji mean?

Oh, boy. This emoji has two distinctly different ideas behind it.

The love hotel or heart hospital emoji depicts a building with both a pink heart and on some platforms the letter H emblazoned on the front. It is mostly used in reference to hospitals and health as well as to vacation resorts. Those uses are far from the reported original intent, which was to indicate a house of ill repute (i.e., a bad reputation).

Where does 🏩 Love Hotel emoji come from?

When the love hotel or heart hospital emoji  was created and approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010 , it apparently meant a hotel where rooms may be rented by the hour, for … love. By the time it was added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015, the use had shifted.

Maybe it’s the letter H atop the building or the sweet pink heart over the entrance. It might be the fact that it actually looks a bit like the hospital emoji seen here 🏥, depending on your viewing platform.

Whatever it is, this is one of the most misused emojis we’ve come across; instead of being used to refer to a “love hotel,” it often just references hospitals and health care. It’s also used to mean a romantic resort or vacation getaway.

So … a hotel for prostitution? Not so much. That’s why the love hotel emoji now has a second name: the heart hospital emoji.

Examples of 🏩 Love Hotel emoji

Who uses 🏩 Love Hotel emoji?

It’s fun seeing the love hotel emoji used to mean things other than what it was intended for. Or, maybe we just have a twisted sense of humor.

At any rate, here, the intent is clearly a medical reference:

Quick #CarFreeDayIndy recap with Gene Berry of @OneAmerica – we took the Monon from 54th. Easy in and at cross points with major Indy roads saw courteous drivers so, thankfully no 🚗 v 🚲 🚨 or 🏩today! pic.twitter.com/mfrpjwCwkq

— Tom Spalding (@SpaldoBusiness) September 21, 2018

And two more:

Likely outcomes of a 'no-deal' #Brexit:

🔴 NHS could run out of drugs 🏩
🔴 Ambulances stopped at border 🚑
🔴 Spiralling costs for business 🏬
🔴 Huge lorry queues 🚛🚛🚛
🔴 Empty shelves 🍽️
🔴 Increased credit card costs 📈
🔴 Planes grounded 🛬
🔴 Manufacturing collapse 🏭

— Theresa Griffin (@TheresaEurope) September 17, 2018

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn98AnOjq_M/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

This Instagram user means to imply a spa with this emoji:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn1dNikBjtK/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

We’re pretty sure this historic resort in the Poconos is not used for prostitution:

Six Historic Lodgings in the Pocono Mountains ⛰🏩 https://t.co/CTD4st7pDa by @PoconoTourism

— Woodloch Resort (@Woodloch) September 20, 2018

And here, the intent is probably for a romantic get-away.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn3WyIDFX5d/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

We’re really not sure of the intent here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn7PlA8gTLL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

So, as you can see, the love hotel emoji is a lot of things, but we’d say its current use is not what the emoji’s creators intended. Guess you don’t need to say “whore house” very often in texts …