# EmojiNet: Building a Machine Readable Sense Inventory for Emoji

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.07710 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.07710/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 25 Oct 2016.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Black or White but never neutral: How readers perceive identity from yellow or skin-toned emoji](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05887/) (2021)
- [FeelsGoodMan: Inferring Semantics of Twitch Neologisms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08411/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Emoji are a contemporary and extremely popular way to enhance electronic communication. Without rigid semantics attached to them, emoji symbols take on different meanings based on the context of a message. Thus, like the word sense disambiguation task in natural language processing, machines also need to disambiguate the meaning or sense of an emoji. In a first step toward achieving this goal, this paper presents EmojiNet, the first machine readable sense inventory for emoji. EmojiNet is a resource enabling systems to link emoji with their context-specific meaning. It is automatically constructed by integrating multiple emoji resources with BabelNet, which is the most comprehensive multilingual sense inventory available to date. The paper discusses its construction, evaluates the automatic resource creation process, and presents a use case where EmojiNet disambiguates emoji usage in tweets. EmojiNet is available online for use at http://emojinet.knoesis.org.