brown heart
Unicode: 1F90E
Description
A yellow circular face with a hand placed over its mouth, often used to depict shock, surprise, or embarrassment, occasionally with a slight blush.
Group:
Smileys & Emotion > heart
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Commonly expresses shock, surprise, awe, embarrassment, or a sense of 'whoops' or 'oh no'. It can also convey humility or a realization of a social faux pas.
Backstory
This emoji was introduced in Unicode 10.0 (2017) as part of a set of new face emojis depicting various expressions. Its design is based on the common human gesture of covering one's mouth out of shock or surprise.
Usage Examples
- Expressing surprise: 'Did you see that? 捂脸 (shocked face)!'
- Admitting a blunder: 'I sent that email to the wrong person 捂脸 (embarrassed face).'
- Reacting to something unbelievable: 'That plot twist! 捂脸 (astonished face).'
- Conveying shyness or awkwardness: 'He complimented me and I just 捂脸 (shy face).'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Frequently used for expressing surprise, 'can't believe it' moments, or 'oops, I shouldn't have said that'.
East Asian culture:
Can represent surprise, shyness, embarrassment, or a polite way of covering one's mouth when laughing or gasping.