eggplant
Unicode: 1F346
Description
A purple, oval-shaped eggplant, often depicted with a green stem attached.
Group:
Food & Drink > food-vegetable
Status:
fully-qualified
Emotion:
Mostly neutral, but can be associated with healthy eating, gardening, or specific cuisines. Often used in a humorous or suggestive context due to its phallic shape, especially in Western cultures.
Backstory
The eggplant emoji was approved as part of Unicode 6.0 in 2010. Its widespread use as a suggestive emoji in Western culture emerged later, driven by internet memes and informal communication.
Usage Examples
- Food/Cooking: 'Making some ratatouille tonight 🍆'
- Gardening: 'Look at these beautiful eggplants I harvested! 🍆'
- Humorous/Suggestive (Western): 'He sent me the 🍆 emoji.'
- Healthy eating: 'Eating more veggies like 🍆'
Cultural Differences
Western culture:
Frequently used as a euphemism for a penis, especially in informal digital communication and sexting. Also used for food.
East Asian culture:
Primarily used to represent the vegetable itself, without the suggestive connotations common in Western cultures.
Indian culture:
A common vegetable in curries and dishes, often used in culinary contexts with no sexual connotations.