Shaggy-coated and humped, with horns curving out from a massive head, the bison emoji depicts North America's largest land mammal. It's used for the animal itself, a symbol of the Great Plains and Native heritage, and for a general sense of rugged resilience.
What 🦬 means
A large, muscular bison on all fours, looking to the side, with short horns, its signature hump on its shoulders, and two shades of brown fur, one darker than the other.
This emoji signifies brawn, might, and immovability, as well as a sense of protection from danger. The platforms vary in their depictions of the 🦬 Bison emoji but the muscular structure of bison is made clear universally.
How and when to use it
- If the conversation literally involves a bison or a buffalo, there's no better emoji than this.
- A brawny built of a person can be represented using 🦬.
- Bison can weigh up to a ton, and this kind of immovability (physical or metaphorical) can be described using this 🦬 emoji.
- Someone with a big appetite can be poked fun at using this emoji.
- If you want to convey that you're going to protect someone, 🦬 can be used as a symbol of that protection.
Other Names
- 🦬 Buffalo
- 🦬 African Buffalo
- 🦬 Water Buffalo
- 🦬 Wisent
- 🦬 Auroch
- 🦬 Ox
- 🦬 Oxen
The lowdown
- Category
- Animals & Nature › animal-mammal
- Codepoints
U+1F9AC- Emoji version
- Emoji 13.0
- Shortcodes
:bison:- Keywords
- animal, bison, buffalo, herd, wisent
How it looks across platforms
Seeing a blank box instead of the emoji somewhere? Here's why that happens. Curious why the designs above don't match to begin with? Here's why that happens too.
⚡ Quick round
Which joined the keyboard first — 🦬 Bison or 🇦🇷 Flag: Argentina?