🪸

coral

Unicode: 1FAB8

Description

A brown rock, often depicted with a roughly spherical or irregular shape and a textured surface. It typically represents a natural stone or a boulder.

Group:

Animals & Nature > animal-marine

Status:

fully-qualified

Emotion:

Neutral, or subtly conveying groundedness, stability, hardness, and natural authenticity.

Backstory

This emoji was introduced in Unicode 13.0 (2020) as part of a broader effort to expand the range of natural objects and elements available in the emoji set. It fills a basic need for representing generic rocks in digital communication.

Usage Examples

  • Describing scenery: 'Hiking through the mountains, saw so many interesting rocks! 🪨'
  • Figurative use for stability: 'She's been my rock through all these tough times. 🪨'
  • Indicating something hard or strong: 'This material is as hard as a rock. 🪨'
  • Gardening or landscaping context: 'Planning to add some decorative rocks to the garden. 🪨'

Cultural Differences

Western culture:

Often used literally to represent rocks, stones, geological features, or as a metaphor for strength, stability, or being 'rock solid'.

East Asian culture:

Similar literal uses; can also appear in contexts relating to nature, meditation, or as an element in garden aesthetics (like rock gardens).