Sneezing face emoji 🤧
🤧 is the sneezing face: eyes shut, a tissue pressed to the nose. It means a sneeze, a cold, allergies or hay fever, and because the tissue also works for tears it has a…
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What the sneezing face 🤧 emoji means
🤧 is the sneezing face: eyes shut, a tissue pressed to the nose. It means a sneeze, a cold, allergies or hay fever, and because the tissue also works for tears it has a second life as “crying into a tissue” — sniffling at a sad film or an emotional post. Added in Emoji 3.0 (2016), it belongs to the sick emoji family with 🤒 face with thermometer (fever) and 😷 face with medical mask. For “bless you” people reply with 🙏 or 🤍.
Unicode name: sneezing face · U+1F927 · Emoji 3.0 (2016) · group: Smileys & Emotion.
How people use it
- Sneezing: colds, dust, pepper
- Allergies: spring and hay fever posts
- Sick day: with 🤒 and 🛏️
- Sniffling: emotional tears into a tissue
Compare the options
| Emoji | Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| sneezing faceU+1F927 | Sneeze, cold, allergies | |
| face with thermometerU+1F912 | Fever, ill | |
| face with medical maskU+1F637 | Mask, contagious | |
| nauseated faceU+1F922 | Queasy | |
| roll of paperU+1F9FB | Tissues, toilet paper |
Runny nose, blowing nose and sniffling: tissue talk
The tissue held to the nose is the key detail on 🤧. Because there is no separate blowing nose emoji, this is the emoji people use to say “blowing my nose”, “runny nose”, or “sniffle”. It covers colds, allergies, and hay fever.
In messages, it works for both serious sniffles and light-hearted “snot” jokes. It often appears during cold and flu season, sometimes with 🤒 or 😷. The emoji does not show snot explicitly, but the tissue suggests it.
Does 🤧 mean coughing? A common mix-up
The sneezing face is not a coughing emoji. No emoji specifically shows a cough, so people sometimes use 🤧 by mistake when they mean coughing, or they use 😷 face with medical mask to cover coughing illnesses. But 🤧 is all about the nose: a sneeze, a sniffle, or a blow.
If you want to say you have a cough, adding text alongside an emoji like 😷 or 🤒 makes the meaning clearer. For example, “Woke up with a cough 😷” leaves no doubt. Meanwhile, keep 🤧 for the sneezing, sniffling moments.
Questions people ask
What does 🤧 mean?
A sneeze — a cold or allergies — or, by extension, sniffling and crying into a tissue.
Is there an allergy emoji?
🤧 is the one people use for allergies and hay fever, often with 🌸 or 🌾 for the pollen.
What is the difference between 🤧 and 🤒?
🤧 is sneezing into a tissue; 🤒 has a thermometer in its mouth and means fever.
Is there a blowing nose emoji?
No, 🤧 is used instead because it shows a tissue pressed to the nose.
Is there a coughing emoji?
No dedicated coughing emoji exists. The closest options are 🤧 and 😷, but neither specifically shows coughing.
About this guide
Written and maintained by the Emoji Directory editorial team, without ads or sponsorship. Meanings describe how the emoji is commonly used in public posts and messages, not an official definition. Names, code points, versions, keywords and translations come from the Unicode Emoji 18.0 and CLDR data; shortcodes from the gemoji project. Last reviewed . Spotted a mistake or a new usage? Tell us, or read how the directory is made.