A wide-eyed macaque head with a mischievous grin — that's the monkey face emoji. It's used for playful teasing, cheeky jokes, or calling out someone who's clearly up to no good, carrying the same impish energy as the see-no-evil monkey without the covered eyes.
What 🐵 means
The face of a monkey, with its round face adorned by a wide, open-mouthed gleeful smile, and small button-like ears on either side.
Monkeys are well known for their mischievous nature, and the smile in the 🐵 Monkey Face emoji hints at that among other of its characteristics like silliness and excitement. A variety of interpretations of this smiling monkey is available in different styles across various platforms that support this emoji.
How and when to use it
- 🐵 emoji can be efficiently used to signal a tone of playful silliness.
- The broad smile of the 🐵 monkey emoji here can represent your own feeling of happiness, including laughter.
- If you're either embarrassed, or you want to point out the embarrassment of someone else, this cheerful monkey face 🐵 does the job.
- Having the 🐵 emoji represent yourself can also display a sign of respect towards the recipient, as you're showing that you're humbled down to a level much inferior to them.
Other Names
- 🐵 Monkey
- 🐵 Monkey Head
- 🐵 Silly
- 🐵 Silliness
- 🐵 Playful
- 🐵 Monkey Smile
- 🐵 Monkey Laugh
- 🐵 Funny Monkey
- 🐵 Smiling Monkey
🐵 in real conversations
Why do people say 'monkey business'?
It means mischief, trickery, or fooling around, an American phrase that took off in the 1880s and probably grew out of an earlier word, monkeyshine, for a dishonorable or silly act. 🐵 channels that exact energy, harmless troublemaking rather than actual wrongdoing. It's the reason the monkey became shorthand for goofing off instead of anything more serious.
What does 🐵 mean in texting?
Playful mischief, sent when someone's clowning around or being cheeky rather than serious. It's a calmer cousin of 🙈, which specifically covers its eyes for cringe or embarrassment. 🐵 has no hands up and no shame attached, just goofiness for its own sake, closer to a wink than an apology.
What does 🐵 mean from a girl?
Teasing energy, usually attached to a joke she just made or a confession she's half embarrassed about. It reads lighter than 🙈, which tends to signal actual cringe. Paired with a wink or a punchline, 🐵 says 'I'm being cheeky on purpose,' not 'I can't believe I said that.'
The lowdown
- Category
- Animals & Nature › animal-mammal
- Codepoints
U+1F435- Emoji version
- Emoji 0.6
- Shortcodes
:monkey_face:- Keywords
- animal, banana, face, monkey
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 — 🐵 Monkey Face or 🧷 Safety Pin?
Runs with a crowd
🐵 keeps company in animal emojis — tap-to-copy sets for when one emoji isn't enough.