The Face With Thermometer emoji 🤒 means someone is sick, feverish, or generally unwell. It shows a pale face with closed eyes, a frown, and a thermometer in the mouth. People use it to report illness, explain a sick day, or ask for sympathy when they are running a temperature.
What Does the Face With Thermometer Emoji Mean?
The 🤒 emoji means "I am sick," and more specifically "I have a fever or feel ill enough to need rest."
The design combines two signals: a face that looks tired and unhappy, and a clinical thermometer tucked into the mouth. Together they point to an oral temperature check, the classic image of a sick day at home.
Unicode officially names it FACE WITH THERMOMETER, and Apple labels it "Thermometer Face." Its Unicode codepoint is U+1F912, it was added in Unicode 8.0, and it entered the emoji set as part of Emoji 1.0 in the Smileys & Emotion category.
What feelings does it carry?
Mostly it carries physical discomfort, not drama. The face is flat and weary rather than panicked, so it reads as "I feel awful and I am stuck in bed" instead of an emergency.
- Fever, chills, and body aches
- Cold or flu symptoms
- General exhaustion while recovering
- A request for sympathy or a gentle check-in
How Do You Use the Face With Thermometer Emoji?
You use 🤒 whenever you want to signal illness quickly, either in a standalone message or at the end of a sentence about how you feel.
Because the picture is so literal, it works without much explanation. A single 🤒 in reply to "Are you coming tonight?" already tells the other person you are not.
Here are a few realistic examples:
- Woke up with a 38.5 fever. Working from bed today 🤒
- Can't make it to practice, caught whatever is going around 🤒
- Day three of this cold and I still sound like a frog 🤒
Does it only mean a fever?
No. The thermometer suggests fever, but people use the emoji for any kind of sickness, including stuffy-nose colds, sore throats, and flu-like days where nothing in particular hurts but everything feels off.
What Does 🤒 Mean in Texting and on Social Media?
In texting, 🤒 works as a short status update that tells friends, family, or colleagues you are out of commission.
It often replaces a longer explanation. Instead of typing out symptoms, people send the emoji as a heads-up that plans are cancelled, replies will be slow, or they need some space to recover.
On social media it appears in captions and stories about being ill. Posts about missed events, hospital waiting rooms, or a week stuck on the couch frequently carry it, and it tends to invite supportive replies and "get well soon" comments.
Is it used in a joking way?
Sometimes. People occasionally use 🤒 playfully to exaggerate a minor inconvenience or to say "I need a break," but the dominant meaning stays literal. If you are using it as a joke, add context so nobody worries.
How Does 🤒 Differ From Other Sick Emojis?
The Face With Thermometer emoji specifically signals fever or general illness, while its neighbors describe different symptoms.
Choosing the right one makes your message clearer:
- Face With Medical Mask 😷 suggests wearing a mask, either because you are sick and protecting others or because you want to avoid catching something.
- Sneezing Face 🤧 points to allergies, colds, and a runny nose rather than a fever.
- Nauseated Face 🤢 shows queasiness, food poisoning, or disgust.
- Face Vomiting 🤮 is the stronger version, used for actual vomiting or extreme revulsion.
- Face With Head-bandage 🤕 signals injury, pain, or an accident instead of an illness.
If your main symptom is a temperature, 🤒 is the most accurate pick. If you are sweating from heat rather than sickness, Hot Face 🥵 fits better, though it carries other connotations too.
How Does the Face With Thermometer Emoji Look on Different Platforms?
Every major platform shows the same idea, a sick-looking face with a thermometer in the mouth, but the art style varies.
The emoji is widely supported across modern devices and apps:
- Apple: iOS 9.1+ and macOS 10.11.1+
- Google: Android 6.0.1+
- Microsoft: Windows 10+
- Samsung: One UI 1.0+
- WhatsApp (Meta): version 2.17+
- Twitter (X): Twemoji 2.0+
Because the emoji has existed since Emoji 1.0 and Unicode 8.0, it displays correctly on virtually any phone or computer updated in recent years. Older devices that predate these versions may show an empty box or a question mark instead.
Will it look the same to the person I am messaging?
Not exactly. Colors, shading, and the angle of the thermometer differ between vendors, but the meaning stays consistent. Nobody is likely to misread it as anything other than sickness.
Which Emojis Pair Well With 🤒?
Pairing 🤒 with a second emoji adds detail about how bad you feel or what you need.
- 🤒🛌 for "sick in bed and not moving"
- 🤒🍲 for soup, tea, and recovery food
- 🤒💊 for medicine and treatment
- 🤒😷 for staying masked while contagious
- 🤒🥶 for fever chills
Stacking the emoji works too. Sending 🤒🤒🤒 emphasizes that you are really unwell, while a single one reads as a mild report.
To find combinations you may not have thought of, try the Emoji Translator, which turns a sentence like "I have a cold and need to rest" into emojis. You can also check which sick-day emojis are popular on the trending emojis page.
When Should You Avoid the Face With Thermometer Emoji?
Avoid 🤒 when the situation is serious, formal, or when the person you are writing to might read it as a joke.
A cheerful-looking emoji can feel dismissive if you are describing a major medical issue. For serious diagnoses, hospital stays, or emergencies, plain words are clearer and show appropriate care.
Be careful in professional settings too. A short sick-day notice to your manager is fine with an emoji if your workplace chat is casual, but formal emails and HR communications are better handled in full sentences.
What about public health topics?
Since the emoji is often tied to fever and contagious illness, it can come across as alarming when used in group chats during outbreaks. If you are warning others, be specific about what you have and what you are doing about it instead of relying on the icon alone.
How Do You Copy and Paste the Face With Thermometer Emoji?
You can copy the 🤒 emoji with one click on this page and paste it anywhere that accepts text.
Use the copy button near the top of the page, then paste it into your message, caption, document, or status update. It works in texts, email, social posts, and chat apps because it is a standard Unicode character (U+1F912).
Want more expressive faces to go with it? Browse the full Smileys & Emotion category to find emojis for every mood. And if you ever feel better and want to tell the world, the same copy-and-paste trick works for every emoji on the site.
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