say it: uh-MOH-tuh-kahn
emoticon is a noun meaning "a representation of a facial expression (as a smile or frown) created by typing a sequence of characters in sending email". It carries one recorded sense.
a representation of a facial expression (as a smile or frown) created by typing a sequence of characters in sending email
“:-( and :-) are emoticons”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for emoticon come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.