Cockroach Emoji
A cockroach seen from above, for pests and things that refuse to die.
Try Cockroach emoji
Edit the text, then change the size.
Meaning & usage
What does the Cockroach emoji mean?
A cockroach seen from above, for pests and things that refuse to die.
Unpleasant on purpose. It carries revulsion in a way the other insects do not, and works as dark humour about endurance.
How to use 🪳 naturally
Flat-hunting horror stories, kitchen panic and jokes about surviving anything.
Animal emoji can be literal, affectionate or symbolic. People often use them for pets and wildlife, but also for personality traits, visual themes and private nicknames.
From standard to slang
The history of 🪳
- 2020
First defined as emoji
According to Unicode’s Emoji Versions data, Cockroach was first defined as emoji in Emoji 13.0, dated 2020. A full release across faces, animals, food and objects.
- Before the keyboard
Its visual roots
Added in 2020, viewed from above with its long antennae spread forward. The top-down angle is unusual for the animal set and gives it the look of something caught in a torch beam.
- Today
How its use evolved
Flat-hunting horror stories, kitchen panic and jokes about surviving anything.
Dates follow Unicode’s official Emoji Versions chart. Versions before Emoji 1.0 are labelled retrospectively. See the history of emoji.
In conversation
Examples of 🪳 in messages
These examples show the emoji in complete messages, where the words make its intended tone easier to read.
Saw one in the kitchen and moved out mentally 🪳
This laptop has survived worse 🪳
New flat, first night, guess what 🪳
When to use it
Using 🪳 clearly
Flat-hunting horror stories, kitchen panic and jokes about surviving anything. It lands as cockroach emoji or roach emoji when the rest of the message supports that reading, and it is the surrounding words that do the deciding — so in a sensitive, professional or cross-cultural conversation, say the thing outright as well.
Common questions
About the cockroach emoji
What does 🪳 mean in a text message?
A cockroach seen from above, for pests and things that refuse to die. Unpleasant on purpose. It carries revulsion in a way the other insects do not, and works as dark humour about endurance.
Is 🪳 always positive?
Not always. Its usual readings are cockroach emoji, roach emoji, bug emoji, and irony or the relationship between the people can flip any of them.
Why does 🪳 look different on another device?
U+1FAB3 identifies the emoji; the picture is a font, drawn separately by Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung. Only the artwork changes, never the character.
How do I copy and paste the cockroach emoji?
Use the copy button at the top of this page. 🪳 is a character, not an image, so it pastes into messages, captions and filenames as ordinary text.
When was the cockroach emoji introduced?
Unicode’s Emoji Versions data first records 🪳 as emoji in Emoji 13.0, dated 2020. Early emoji version numbers can be retrospective, so this date describes its place in the standardised emoji set rather than the first-ever appearance of the underlying symbol.
For developers
🪳 in code
Every value below is generated from the character itself, so it stays correct even where a file encoding cannot hold the emoji directly.
| Format | Value | When to use it | Copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode | U+1FAB3 | The standard reference. Use it to search a character map or a spec. | |
| HTML (hex) | 🪳 | For HTML and XML. Safe in files that are not saved as UTF-8. | |
| HTML (decimal) | 🪳 | The same reference in decimal. Both render identically. | |
| CSS | \1FAB3 | For the content property. Keep the quotes around the whole value. | |
| JavaScript | \u{1FAB3} | A string-literal escape. Needs the u flag inside a regular expression. | |
| URL-encoded | %F0%9F%AA%B3 | Percent-encoded UTF-8, for query strings and API requests. |
Reference card
Emoji details
- Unicode
- U+1FAB3
- Category
- Animals & Nature Life
- Also known as
- cockroach emojiroach emojibug emoji
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