🦨

Skunk Emoji 🦨

What 🦨 means

This skunk is shown full-body, standing in side profile with black fur topped by white stripes that run from the head all the way to the tip of the tail, its fluffy but oh-so dangerous tail held up in the air.

The 🦨 Skunk emoji signifies a sense of being cute but also threateningly smelly at the same time (which is a fear response, still very relatable on a human level), omnivorous, and nocturnal (sounds strangely familiar too. Insomniacs, wya?).

PS: The animal-human references used in these emojis are to remind us that we're all the same and different at the same time, so don't rile up.

How and when to use it

If someone told you that they haven't had a shower yet, you can use 🦨 while responding to them (with mutual consent and respect, definitely).
Use 🦨 in your social media profile name if you love skunks.
If you encountered a skunk on your camping trip, and you're either sending those pictures and/or videos to someone close or sharing the same on your social media handle, you can use 🦨 both scenarios.
Is your buddy drunk as a skunk? Shy not from sharing those hilarious pictures or videos of this human mess with 🦨 in the captions as DMs (or on social media if he/she would be okay with it).
If you sketched out an animated skunk or a real one, the pictures of which you're now sharing on social media, you can use 🦨 in such captions too.
Did your boys get some stash? Or are you flaunting your recent buy either as a direct message (DM) or as a social media post? Or, are you posting a social media story with your gang where you can smell love in the air? Then use 🦨 in all those contexts to indicate the smell of skunk.
🦨 can be used as a codeword or rather a code emoji for your stuff too.

Other Names

🦨 Buck (Male Skunk)
🦨 Doe (Female Skunk)
🦨 Kit (Baby Skunk)
🦨 Striped Polecat
🦨 Sweet Smell of Mary Jane
🦨 Stink Badger
🦨 Pepé Le Pew (of course)
🦨 Penelope Pussycat

🦨 in real conversations

What does 🦨 mean in texting?

Something or someone stinks, literally or figuratively, sent about a bad smell, a rotten situation, or a person being generally unpleasant. It works as a stand-in for 'this is foul' in almost any context, borrowing directly from the animal's one famous trait.

Is 🦨 about weed?

Sometimes. 'Skunk' is real slang for a strong, high-THC strain of cannabis, named for its pungent smell, and the term is especially common in the UK for describing potent street weed generally. 🦨 shows up in that context, though plenty of uses are just about an actual smell with nothing to do with cannabis.

Why do skunks spray?

Pure self-defense, and it's a last resort. Skunks stomp their feet and hiss as warnings first, giving a threat a chance to back off before they aim their spray, which can reach up to 15 feet with real accuracy. 🦨 leans on that reputation whenever someone wants to signal 'back off' without saying it outright.

The lowdown

Category: Animals & Nature › animal-mammal
Codepoints: U+1F9A8
Emoji version: Emoji 12.0
Shortcodes: :skunk:
Keywords: animal, skunk, stink

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.