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Emoticon vs Pictogram - What's the difference?

emoticon | pictogram |

As nouns the difference between emoticon and pictogram

is that emoticon is a graphical representation, either in the form of an or made up of text characters, of a particular emotion of the writer while pictogram is a picture that represents a word or an idea by illustration.

emoticon

Noun

(en noun)
  • A graphical representation, either in the form of an image or made up of text characters, of a particular emotion of the writer.
  • Synonyms

    * smiley

    Hyponyms

    * kaomoji

    Usage notes

    In contexts with image-based emoticons, emoticon'' often refers specifically to image-based glyphs, while ''smiley refers to text-based ones.

    See also

    * * emotag ----

    pictogram

    Alternative forms

    * pictogramme (rare)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A picture that represents a word or an idea by illustration.
  • Usage notes

    Strictly speaking, a pictogram'' represents by illustration, an ''ideogram'' represents an idea, and a ''logogram'' represents a word: Chinese characters are all logograms, but few are pictograms or ideograms. Casually, ''pictogram is used to represent all of these: it is a picture representing some concept.

    Synonyms

    * pictograph * hieroglyph