onion Emoji
🧅 · U+1F9C5 · Emoji 12.0
What does the onion emoji mean?
Meaning reviewed and updated July 2026 · Unicode data from the official Unicode Standard
When cooking up a storm in the kitchen or referencing a recipe, individuals often reach for the 🧅 emoji, which represents an onion, a fundamental ingredient in many cuisines around the world, and can also be used figuratively to convey layers of meaning or to express that something is making them cry, while in slang, it may refer to something or someone that is annoying or irritating, adding a layer of complexity to its usage.
How the onion emoji is used
The tone of messages using the 🧅 emoji can vary greatly, from the enthusiasm of a foodie sharing a new recipe on Instagram to the frustration of a commenter joking about a show or movie making them cry on Twitter, and its usage is more prevalent among younger generations and on visually-oriented platforms like TikTok and Pinterest, where food and cooking content is highly popular, with the emoji often being used to add a touch of humor or whimsy to captions and comments.
onion emoji examples
- just chopped up an 🧅 for the soup and now i'm crying
- this show is like an 🧅 it has so many layers
How to copy the onion emoji
To use the onion emoji, tap the Copy button above, then paste it (long-press then Paste on mobile, or Ctrl+V / Cmd+V on desktop) anywhere you can type: messages, captions, usernames, bios and documents. It copies the real Unicode character (U+1F9C5), so it works on every app and platform, no download needed.
Also known as
onion emoji on different platforms
How the onion emoji looks across emoji sets. These designs come from openly-licensed sets (Twemoji, Google Noto, OpenMoji). See image credits.
onion Emoji Details
| Emoji | 🧅 |
| Name | onion |
| Category | Food & Drink |
| Codepoints | U+1F9C5 |
| Shortcode | :onion: |
| Emoji version | 12.0 |
| Unicode version | 12.0 |
onion Emoji FAQ
When cooking up a storm in the kitchen or referencing a recipe, individuals often reach for the 🧅 emoji, which represents an onion, a fundamental ingredient in many cuisines around the world, and can also be used figuratively to convey layers of meaning or to express that something is making them cry, while in slang, it may refer to something or someone that is annoying or irritating, adding a layer of complexity to its usage.
Tap the Copy button at the top of this page, then paste 🧅 wherever you type. Because it copies the real Unicode character, it works in every app on iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac.
It is U+1F9C5, introduced in Emoji version 12.0 (Unicode 12.0). Its shortcode is :onion:.
People also search for the onion emoji as flavoring.