The Face Vomiting emoji 🤮 means extreme disgust, nausea, or being physically sick. It shows a green-tinged face with an open mouth spewing vomit, and people use it both literally for illness and figuratively to react to anything revolting, cringey, or morally repulsive, from spoiled food to a bad take online.
What Does the Face Vomiting Emoji Mean?
The Face Vomiting emoji means someone is throwing up or feels so disgusted that they might. It is the strongest of the nausea faces, sitting above mild queasiness and well beyond simple dislike.
Its Unicode name is FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH VOMITING, and it belongs to the Smileys & Emotion category. Apple labels it simply "Vomiting," while most other platforms use "Face Vomiting." The design usually shows squeezed or crossed eyes, a pale or green complexion, and a stream of vomit coming from the mouth, which makes the message unmistakable at a glance.
Literal meaning
In its plainest use, the emoji reports a physical symptom. Someone with food poisoning, a stomach bug, motion sickness, or a hangover can send it to say "I am actually being sick right now."
Figurative meaning
Most of the time, though, people send it as an emotional reaction. It stands in for "this is gross," "I cannot stand this," or "this makes me sick," even when nobody is anywhere near a bathroom.
What Does 🤮 Mean in Texting and on Social Media?
In texting and social media, 🤮 is a loud, exaggerated way to say something is disgusting, cringeworthy, or deeply distasteful. It rarely means the sender is physically ill.
Common uses include reacting to gross food photos, ridiculous celebrity behavior, over-the-top romantic posts, or opinions the sender finds offensive. In comment sections, a single 🤮 under a post is a quick, wordless thumbs-down that signals strong disapproval.
Tone matters a great deal. Between close friends, the emoji is usually playful teasing. Under a stranger's post, it can read as harsh or insulting, because it directly compares what they shared to something sickening.
- Just saw the new pizza topping combo they are selling 🤮
- Their couple posts are so sugary I might 🤮
- Ate the gas station sushi. Do not recommend. 🤮
How Do You Use the Face Vomiting Emoji?
Use the Face Vomiting emoji when you want to express strong disgust or report that you feel sick, and place it at the end of a sentence or as a standalone reaction.
It works best when the situation really is gross or when you are clearly exaggerating for humor. Because it is so intense, repeating it (🤮🤮🤮) amplifies the reaction, while a single emoji feels more like a pointed aside.
Literal sickness
When you are genuinely unwell, pairing the emoji with a plain explanation avoids confusion. A friend reading Cannot come tonight, stomach bug 🤮 understands immediately that this is a health update, not a joke.
Humorous exaggeration
Dramatic overreactions are a big part of how people use this emoji. Saying a song, a plot twist, or a messy kitchen is "making me 🤮" is a familiar way to joke about mild annoyance with big theatrical energy.
Critical or judgmental use
Some people use it to express moral disgust, such as reacting to news about someone's bad behavior. In these cases the emoji carries real contempt, so consider whether that tone fits the conversation.
How Is It Different From the Nauseated Face and Other Sick Emojis?
The Face Vomiting emoji is more extreme than the Nauseated Face 🤢, which shows queasiness without the actual vomiting. Think of 🤢 as "I feel sick or grossed out" and 🤮 as "it has already happened or it is about to."
Other sick-themed faces cover different situations entirely. The Face With Medical Mask 😷 signals illness, caution, or protection from germs. The Face With Thermometer 🤒 points to fever and general sickness. The Face With Head-bandage 🤕 suggests injury or pain rather than stomach trouble, and the Sneezing Face 🤧 is tied to colds and allergies.
- 🤢 for mild nausea or "ew" reactions
- 🤮 for full disgust or actual vomiting
- 🤒 for fever and feeling unwell
- 😷 for illness precautions
Choosing the right one helps your message land. Sending 🤮 when you only have a runny nose will sound overdramatic, while sending 🤢 for a truly awful experience may undersell it.
How Does the Face Vomiting Emoji Look on Different Platforms?
The emoji appears on all major platforms, but each vendor draws the vomit and facial expression a little differently, so the same message can feel slightly more or less graphic depending on the device.
It was introduced in Unicode 10.0 and Emoji 5.0, with the codepoint U+1F92E. Because it arrived relatively recently compared with older faces, very old operating systems will not display it and may show an empty box or question mark instead.
Platform support starts at these versions:
- Apple: iOS 11.1+ and macOS 10.13.1+
- Google: Android 8.0+
- Microsoft: Windows 10 Fall Creators Update+
- Samsung: One UI 1.0+
- WhatsApp: version 2.17.40+
- Twitter: Twemoji 2.5+
If a friend on an older phone cannot see the emoji, a short text clarification such as "feeling sick" or "that is disgusting" keeps the meaning clear. The emoji does not support skin tone modifiers, so it looks the same regardless of your settings.
Which Emojis Pair Well With 🤮?
The Face Vomiting emoji pairs well with food, weather, and emotion emojis that sharpen the reason for the reaction. Pairings help the reader see what, exactly, is making you sick.
- 🤮🍕 or 🤮🍣 for a food reaction
- 🤮💔 for disgust at a breakup or betrayal
- 🤮🥵 when heat or a stuffy room makes you feel awful (see the Hot Face 🥵)
- 🤮🙄 for sarcastic disdain
- 🤮😂 for laughing at something gross
Combining it with laughter signals a joke, while combining it with 😡 or 👎 pushes the tone toward real criticism. If you want help finding the perfect emoji mix for a sentence, the Emoji Translator can turn plain text into emojis, and the Smileys & Emotion category lists every face in the same family.
When Should You Avoid the Face Vomiting Emoji?
Avoid the Face Vomiting emoji in formal, professional, or sensitive conversations, because it is blunt and can come across as insulting.
In work chats, a 🤮 reacting to a colleague's idea can feel hostile even if you meant it lightheartedly. In a conversation about someone's cooking, appearance, or personal choices, it can wound feelings quickly. It is also a poor fit when discussing serious illness, eating disorders, or pregnancy complications, where vomiting is a real and painful experience for many people.
When in doubt, pick a softer alternative. A plain sentence or the milder 🤢 communicates dislike without the same harshness, and gives the other person room to respond without feeling attacked.
How Do You Copy and Paste the Face Vomiting Emoji?
You can copy the Face Vomiting emoji 🤮 with one click on this page, then paste it into any app, message, or document.
Click the emoji or the copy button above, switch to your chat or post, and paste with Ctrl+V on Windows or Command+V on a Mac. On phones, long-press in the text field and tap Paste. The emoji uses the standard U+1F92E codepoint and the shortcode :face_vomiting:, so it should work anywhere that supports Emoji 5.0 or later. For more popular picks, check the trending emojis page and keep your reactions fresh.
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