What Does the 🍆 Eggplant EmojiEmoji
A Japanese word (絵文字) meaning 'picture character' — small graphical symbols used in digital communication to express ideas, emotions, and objects. Mean?
The 🍆 eggplant emoji is, without question, one of the most recognizable and frequently discussed emojis in existence — and not primarily because of anyone's love of the vegetable. Within internet culture, the eggplant emoji has become the de facto symbol for male genitalia, a meaning so universally understood that major platforms have introduced specific restrictions around it.
But there's more to 🍆 than its most infamous use. Let's explore the full story.
The Literal Meaning
Botanically speaking, the eggplant (also called aubergine in British English) is a purple, elongated vegetable used extensively in Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and South Asian cooking. Its literal applications in emoji use include:
- Cooking and recipe content
- Vegetarian and vegan food posts
- References to moussaka, baba ganoush, ratatouille, and similar dishes
- Aubergine-colored aesthetics (a deep purple-black)
- General vegetable garden or farming content
In food communities, culinary content creators, and recipe blogs, the eggplant emoji appears without any innuendo whatsoever. The shape just happens to have another very prominent association.
The Slang Meaning
The eggplant emoji became associated with the penis almost immediately after its introduction to mainstream emoji sets. The elongated shape and rounded tip create an obvious visual parallel, and internet culture embraced the association immediately.
This meaning is so established that:
- A 2019 Instagram policy explicitly banned the eggplant emoji from appearing in certain search contexts
- The phrase "eggplant emoji" has become a standard euphemism in mainstream journalism and entertainment writing
- The emoji appears in this context across virtually every social platform and dating app
- It has been referenced in court documents, news stories, and academic studies on emoji communication
Platform Restrictions
The eggplant emoji's suggestive reputation has led to real policy consequences:
Instagram has at various points restricted the emoji from appearing in hashtag searches and limited how it surfaces in certain content discovery contexts. The platform's guidelines around sexual content extend to emoji use when the emoji is clearly used sexually.
Snapchat and other dating-adjacent platforms have had to develop policies around the emoji in the context of unsolicited content.
This makes the 🍆 one of the very few individual emojis to have been subject to specific platform policy action — a testament to how clearly its slang meaning is understood.
The Cultural Footprint
The eggplant emoji's cultural impact extends well beyond emoji conversations:
- Merchandise: The eggplant emoji appears on countless products specifically because of its suggestive meaning
- Memes: It's a fixture in meme culture, typically used in contexts that play with the contrast between the innocent vegetable and the obvious innuendo
- Music and entertainment: Pop music references the emoji regularly in lyrics and promotional content
- News coverage: Major publications regularly reference the "eggplant emoji" as shorthand when covering topics they'd otherwise need to describe more explicitly
It has become so normalized that many young internet users primarily associate the eggplant with the emoji rather than the vegetable itself.
Using 🍆 Without Innuendo
Yes, it's possible to use the eggplant emoji genuinely — it just requires more context than most emojis. Food bloggers, nutritionists, and culinary communities do use it regularly for its literal meaning, often alongside other vegetable emojis to make the food context unmistakable.
If you're running a food account and want to post about eggplant dishes, using 🍆 alongside 🫒🧄🍅 and cooking-specific language will usually read correctly. The more food context you provide, the more clearly the literal meaning comes through.
Regional Naming Note
In the UK, Australia, and much of the Commonwealth, the vegetable is called an aubergine, not an eggplant. Interestingly, the emoji is widely called the "aubergine emoji" in British English contexts — but the slang meaning is identical across regions.
Combinations and Context
- 🍆🍑 — Extremely suggestive combination; this pairing has no innocent reading in most contexts
- 🍆🍅🧄🫒 — Cooking context, Mediterranean cuisine
- 🍆💜 — Purple aesthetic, love of the color
- 🍆🌱 — Gardening, growing vegetables
- 🍆😂 — Joking acknowledgment of the emoji's reputation
The Eggplant vsVariation Selector (VS)
Unicode characters (VS-15 U+FE0E and VS-16 U+FE0F) that modify whether a character renders in text (monochrome) or emoji (colorful) presentation.. The Vegetable
One of the more interesting cultural consequences of the eggplant emoji's reputation is that some food content creators actively avoid using 🍆 in their cooking posts to prevent their content from reading incorrectly or being flagged by algorithms. This is a genuine, practical concern for professional food creators — a vegetable emoji being too famous for the wrong reasons.
When Context Matters Most
The eggplant emoji is one of the most context-dependent emojis in the entire UnicodeUnicode
Universal character encoding standard that assigns a unique number to every character across all writing systems and symbol sets, including emoji. set. The exact same character can mean:
- "I'm making eggplant parmesan tonight" (completely literal)
- Something extremely not safe for work (unmistakably suggestive)
The surrounding text, the relationship between the people communicating, the platform, and the tone all determine which reading applies. Unlike most emojis, there's almost no middle ground with 🍆.
Tips for Using 🍆
- Understand the default reading: In most casual digital communication contexts, 🍆 will be read suggestively first. This is the baseline assumption.
- Load up on food context: If cooking is genuinely the topic, surrounding the emoji with other food emojis and culinary language usually works.
- Be intentional: Unlike most emojis, using 🍆 casually in ambiguous contexts is almost certain to raise eyebrows.
- Platform-aware usage: On food-specific platforms and cooking communities, the literal reading is more normalized.
Explore More on EmojiFYI
Dive deeper into the world of food emojis and their hidden meanings:
- Compare emojis side by side — See how 🍆 looks across Apple, Google, Samsung, and other platforms
- Emoji analyzer — Analyze what emojis appear in any text you enter
- Emoji usage stats — Track how 🍆 trends over time
- Browse the emoji glossary — Learn the slang meanings of emojis across all categories
- Search all emojis — Find the right vegetable emoji for every situation