People reach for this emoji to flag fevers and sick days, kick off weather rants, or tag a hot take. Drop it beside a fire emoji and it shouts “it’s getting hot in here,” perfect for heat waves, spicy food dares, or a thirst-trap caption that’s basically a confidence temperature check. Used with a wink, it can “measure” the drama in a group chat, the heat of a debate, or how cooked your laptop feels after 47 Chrome tabs. You’ll also see it paired with the face-with-thermometer and pill for flu-season updates, or with snowflakes to talk wild temperature swings. Translation across the timeline is simple: a rising red line means rising stakes—whether it’s climate chatter, a team heating up, or a meme that’s officially too hot to handle.
On Apple/iOS, it appears as a sleek silver-gray glass tube with a bright red column climbing inside, a rounded red bulb at the base, and crisp black tick marks—usually tilted slightly, like it’s mid–medical check. No face and no frills: just a clean, clinical tool that reads as old-school (think mercury era), even though the one in your bathroom cabinet is probably digital now.
Classic vibes, modern drama—the tiny glass stick that announces a temperature situation. That vintage styling lends a little retro-science flair to your screen.
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Emoji History The emoji code/ image log of changes.
This emoji was one of the "suggested emojis" the Unicode group unveiled in June 2014 [article], however, it has been, and still is, up to the companies who support emoji in their operating systems to provide not only images but also an algorithm to replace the emoji code into the emoji image.
