Meaning, copy and paste, related devil emojis and combos.
The devil emoji 😈 is a purple smiling face with horns. It signals mischief, teasing or flirting — plotting something naughty, a suggestive joke, or "villain era" confidence. It is smiling, so it almost never means real malice.
✍️ Written & reviewed against real usage · verified Unicode 16.0Tap to copy · pastes in WhatsApp, Instagram, anywhere
These are the real emoji characters — tap one to copy it, then paste anywhere. Because they’re text, they show up as emoji wherever you send them.
Unicode calls 😈 Smiling Face with Horns, and the smile is the whole point: it marks the sender as knowingly, enjoyably bad rather than angry. In texting it lands three ways — mischief ("I told your mom 😈"), flirtation ("thinking about last night 😈"), and hype for something ruthless, filthy or impressive, like a gym PR or a guitar riff. On TikTok it is the standard caption tag for "villain era", petty revenge and unbothered confidence, where being the bad guy is the flex. Because it is smiling, adding 😈 to a threat or an insult is what tells the reader you are joking.
The default use. It flags a message as deliberately naughty but harmless — a prank, a spoiler, telling on someone, eating the last slice. It says "I know I'm being bad and I'm enjoying it," which is exactly what stops the text reading as hostile.
Very common in DMs. Next to 😏, 👀, 💦 or 🍑 it makes a neutral line suggestive without spelling anything out. Sent after a compliment or a late-night message, it reads as an invitation rather than an insult.
TikTok uses 😈 for unapologetic self-interest: cutting people off, going no-contact, out-earning, out-lifting. Captions like "villain era" or "locked in 😈" treat the devil as a badge of ruthlessness, not actual evil.
In music and gaming the sexual layer disappears. 😈 marks a filthy riff, a clutch play, a sweaty ranked lobby or a hard beat drop, working like "nasty" or "insane" used as a compliment.
When a girl sends 😈 it is usually teasing, not threatening. In a flirty thread — after a compliment, a selfie, or a plan to meet up — it signals interest and a bit of daring, the emoji version of a raised eyebrow. In a normal chat it more often means she is scheming something small and funny: she got you a ridiculous gift, she is about to embarrass you in the group chat, she went and did the thing you told her not to do. From a guy it works the same way, though guys lean harder on the hype and competitive senses (gym, gaming, a savage comeback). The tell is context: 😈 after banter is playful, 😈 after a compliment is flirty, and 😈 sent alone with no lead-in is usually just bait for you to ask "what did you do?"
Smiling Face with Horns 😈 and Angry Face with Horns 👿 look closely related and get swapped constantly, but they land differently in a message. Here is what separates them, so you send the one you actually mean.
Grinning and purple. Means playful mischief, flirting or cocky hype — the sender is enjoying being bad. Safe in banter and DMs.
Same purple, but scowling with angry brows and a frown. Means real irritation, spite or rage. Sent in a flirty thread it reads as hostile, not playful.
It’s the same character everywhere — each platform just draws it in its own style. Here are three open emoji sets side by side, plus how your own device renders it:
| Platform | How it differs |
|---|---|
| Apple | Purple face with a wide closed-mouth grin, dark eyebrows and two rounded horns; the most-copied version of the design. |
| Flatter purple face with pointed horns and a broad grin; eyes are simple black dots, so it reads friendlier than Apple's. | |
| Samsung | Brighter violet with glossy shading and small pointed horns; older One UI builds showed visible teeth in the smile. |
| Microsoft | Deep purple with sharply angled brows and thin horns, giving a more sinister look than the Apple design at small sizes. |
| Rounded purple face with soft horns and a smile close to Apple's; renders identically on Android and iOS inside WhatsApp. |
Apple, Samsung and WhatsApp draw their own proprietary versions, which we don’t redistribute — the notes above describe how they differ. Open sets shown under their licences: Twemoji (CC-BY 4.0), Noto Emoji (Apache 2.0), OpenMoji (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The devil emoji 😈 is not always read the way you intend it. These three situations change what 😈 signals, and knowing them keeps you from sending the wrong message.
Quick answers to what people ask most about the devil emoji 😈 — what it means in a text, who tends to send it, and how to copy it onto your own keyboard.
Usually teasing or flirting rather than anything menacing. After a compliment or a plan to meet, it signals interest and playfulness. In ordinary conversation it more often means she is up to something small and funny and wants you to ask about it.
It depends on what it is attached to. On banter, a compliment or a suggestive line it is flirty. Attached to an insult or a jab it defuses the jab and marks it as a joke. It is rarely rude on its own because the face is smiling.
😈 is Smiling Face with Horns — mischievous, playful, often flirty. 👿 is Angry Face with Horns, sometimes called the imp, with a scowl and downturned mouth. 👿 means genuine anger, spite or frustration and is not used for flirting.
It is shorthand for villain era, petty revenge and unbothered confidence — cutting people off, going no-contact, outworking everyone. It also tags anything ruthless or impressive, like a gym lift, a clutch gaming play or a hard beat.
Almost never in normal texting. It descends from Japanese demon imagery such as the oni rather than Christian iconography, and everyday use is comic or flirty. Only explicitly religious or occult contexts give it a literal meaning.
Copy 😈 from this page, or type :smiling_imp: on Slack, Discord and GitHub. On iPhone and Android search "devil" or "horns" in the emoji keyboard; on Windows press Win plus period and search devil.
If 😈 came up in a conversation, these are the emoji people most often look up next — each one explained the same way, with meanings you can actually use and characters you can copy.