Definitions for "Emoticon"
Keywords:  smiley, smile, wink, sad, sideway
A text rendition of a face, when viewed sideways, as used in e-mail and Usenet newsgroups to denote an emotion. (From emotive icon.).
Name for those little sideways smiling (and not-smiling!) faces in email messages and other postings. Also known as "smiley". For example: "just kidding" represented by ;-) "I'm sad" represented by :-( If you don't get it, turn your head sideways and look again ;-)
An emoticon is a little face or other picture made up of text. For example, the original emoticon, the smiley, is made with a colon, a hyphen, and a closed parenthesis, like so :-)