Cat emoji and what they mean
There are two kinds of cat emoji. The animals ๐ฑ (cat face) and ๐ (full cat) are for pets and cat pictures. The nine cat faces from ๐บ to ๐พ work like smileys with ears: ๐น is laughing, ๐ป is in love, ๐ is shocked and ๐ฟ is crying.
The black cat ๐โโฌ๏ธ is not a single character. It is ๐ plus an invisible zero width joiner plus a black square โฌ๏ธ, so older phones may show the two emoji side by side instead of one black cat. It is a favorite for Halloween posts and proud black cat owners.
Text cats made from letters
Text cats are built from ordinary letters of other writing systems. แแแข uses three Canadian Aboriginal syllabics that happen to look like a cat lying down, and เธ ^โข๏ปโข^เธ uses the Thai letter เธ as two raised paws. Because they are text, they take on your font color and often work in usernames, game names and other places that do not allow emoji.
Some apps and games strip unusual characters, so test a text cat before you rely on it. For more faces, browse the kaomoji collection or the cute symbols page.
The Egyptian cat hieroglyph ๐
๐ is the hieroglyph of a seated cat, sign E13 in Gardiner's list of Egyptian signs. The ancient Egyptian word for cat was miu, which probably imitated the sound a cat makes. Cats were popular in Egypt and were linked with the goddess Bastet.
Hieroglyphs need a font that covers them. Most new phones and computers have one; if you see an empty box, the device is missing the font, not the symbol. See more ancient signs on the Egyptian symbols page.
How to type a cat symbol
On iPhone and Android, open the emoji keyboard and search for "cat". On Windows, press Win + . and type cat. On a Mac, press Control + Command + Space to open the Character Viewer and search there. For text cats and the hieroglyph, copying from this page is the quickest way.