Round-eyed and perched upright, the owl emoji trades on the bird's reputation for wisdom — 'wise old owl' is practically a cliché at this point. It also covers 'night owl,' someone who thrives after dark, matching the bird's own nocturnal habits.
What 🦉 means
Shown full body, this owl has brown shaded feathers and wings, two shiny black eyes beneath feathery eyebrows, a tiny brown beak, and brown legs with claws.
The physical features of the 🦉 Owl emoji refer to the Great Horned owl, but it can be used to represent any owl species. It signifies the night, wisdom, silence, intellect, and a sense of being nocturnal.
How and when to use it
- "Hey yo, someone said you look like an owl"
"WHO"
There you go, use 🦉 while pulling off this ridiculously hilarious prank in a textual context. - Are you a Harry Potter fan? Do you love owls? Do you believe this intelligent species to be your spirit animal/bird? Or, you stay up at night either by choice of sleep cycle? Then, you must use 🦉 in your social media profile name.
- Besides, you can also use 🦉 while posting Harry Potter related content, such as an appreciation post or a sketch that you made or even similar content, but as a repost or retweet.
- Setting aside the repeated reference to Pigwideon, Snowy, Ghost, and the gang 🦉 can also be used to signify wisdom. For instance, if you're posting a picture/video that needs to have a quote revolving 'wisdom' you can use 🦉.
- Owls also have a sense of quirkiness thanks to the abundance of 'owl jewelry'. So, throwing back to this fashion statement, you can use 🦉 to denote being quirky or having quirks as well.
Other Names
- 🦉 Great Horned Owl
- 🦉 Barn Owl
- 🦉 Bird of Prey
- 🦉 Owlet
- 🦉 Strix (Wood Owls)
- 🦉 Night Bird
- 🦉 Pigwideon (Snowy and Ghost too)
- 🦉 Big Mama
The lowdown
- Category
- Animals & Nature › animal-bird
- Codepoints
U+1F989- Emoji version
- Emoji 3.0
- Shortcodes
:owl:- Keywords
- animal, bird, ornithology, owl, wise
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 — 🦉 Owl or 🫰 Hand with Index Finger and Thumb Crossed?
Runs with a crowd
🦉 keeps company in animal emojis — tap-to-copy sets for when one emoji isn't enough.