These 74 winking kaomoji each keep one eye open and shut the other with a hyphen, a tilde, an angle bracket or a curve. Tap one and it is copied. Thirteen need only a keyboard, (^_-) first.
Read the full guide
Pick a wink, tap it
Tap a tile and that wink is copied. The first three groups go by how the eye is shut: a dash or tilde, a squeeze, a curve. Then come cocked eyebrows, tongues and hands. Search reads the labels: peace finds five faces, salute finds (-_^)ゞ, and kidding finds (^_-) なんちゃって and (・ω<) 冗談.
A wink kaomoji with a word attached
Twelve faces carry a Japanese word, each checked in Wiktionary. Uinku is a wink, borrowed from English. Mekubase is an exchange of significant looks. Naisho is a secret, nanchatte is just kidding, bacchiri is spot on and ryōkai is roger.
Tips
Typed kaomoji wink hoping for something tiny? ^_- is three characters, and Short keeps 58 of six or fewer.
✌ is Victory hand, U+270C, which is on Unicode's emoji list. The v in (^_-)v is a plain letter.
The shut eye in (◕‿↼) is Leftwards harpoon with barb upwards, U+21BC, from the Arrows block.
Questions and answers
Is ;) a winking kaomoji?
No. ;) is a Western emoticon, read with a tilted head. Wikipedia's list of emoticons says a colon makes the eyes unless the face is winking, when a semicolon is used. Kaomoji are read upright: (^_-) is that wink turned the right way up.
How do you type a winking kaomoji on a keyboard?
Open bracket, caret, underscore, hyphen, close bracket: (^_-). Swap the hyphen for a tilde and it is (^_~). The Keyboard only chip shows all 13 that need nothing else, (^_-)v and its peace sign included.
What does tehepero mean?
Wiktionary gives てへぺろ as the act of cheekily winking and sticking out one's tongue, built from tehe, teehee, and the sound of a tongue coming out. It lists (・ω<) beside the word. Here the two share a tile, and テヘペロ is the katakana.
(•̀ω-)Lowered brow, soft w mouth. Borrows ◌̀ from Combining Diacritical Marks.
(•̀ᴗ-)Lowered brow, bowl smile: got this. Borrows ◌̀ from Combining Diacritical Marks and ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(｀・ω-)Fierce brow, one eye shut
(ó‿~)Letter o with an acute for a raised brow
Tongue out 5
(>ω・) テヘペロTehepero in katakana
(>ڡ・)Eye squeezed, tongue out. Borrows ڡ from Arabic.
(^ڡ~)Tongue out to one side. Borrows ڡ from Arabic.
(・ω<) てへぺろTehepero: a cheeky wink, tongue out
(^Q-)Capital Q for a mouth with its tongue out
Peace signs, pointing, salutes 10
(-_^)ゞA salute with a wink
(^_-)_旦Holding out a cup of tea
(^_-)☞Pointing at you
(•̀ᴗ-)✌Cocked brow and a victory hand. Borrows ◌̀ from Combining Diacritical Marks and ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions. ✌ is on the emoji list.
(・ω<)ゞHand to the head: tee-hee
✌(◕‿-)✌Two victory hands. ✌ is on the emoji list.
(☞^o~)☞Both index fingers out: you got it
(^_-)vLetter v for a peace sign
v(・ω<)Peace sign held on the near side
(^_~)yLetter y for two raised fingers
With a Japanese word 10
(-_^) 目配せMekubase, a significant look
(^_-) なんちゃってNanchatte, just kidding
(^_-) ウインクUinku, a wink, in katakana
(^_-) オッケーOkkē, OK
(^_-) 内緒Naisho, a secret
(^_~) ウィンクThe same word spelled with a small i
(•̀ω-) 了解Ryōkai, roger. Borrows ◌̀ from Combining Diacritical Marks.
(•̀ᴗ-) バッチリBacchiri, spot on. Borrows ◌̀ from Combining Diacritical Marks and ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(•̀ᴗ-) 任せてMakasete, leave it to me. Borrows ◌̀ from Combining Diacritical Marks and ᴗ from Phonetic Extensions.
(・ω<) 冗談Jōdan, a joke
How this list was compiled: Built by script on 2026-09-19, not typed into the page by hand. The 74 entries are this site's own selection and arrangement: each was put together for this page from the parts a kaomoji is made of (brackets, one open eye, one shut eye, a mouth, sometimes a hand). Some are forms in common use that nobody owns. Wikipedia's List of emoticons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons, read 2026-09-19) gives (^_-) for a wink, and says of Western emoticons that a colon is used for the eyes of a face unless winking, in which case a semicolon is used; Wikipedia's article Kaomoji (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaomoji, read 2026-09-19) says kaomoji are read upright and that accents can serve as eyebrows. The labels, groups and order are our own. The Japanese words come from Wiktionary, each entry read 2026-09-19: tehepero, representing the act of cheekily or endearingly winking and sticking out one's tongue, katakana form listed, with (・ω<) under See also (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/てへぺろ); uinku, a wink, with the alternative form ウィンク (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ウインク); mekubase, exchanging significant looks, winking (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/目配せ); naisho, a secret (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/内緒); nanchatte, just kidding (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/なんちゃって); jōdan, a joke (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/冗談); bacchiri, perfect, spot on, katakana form listed (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ばっちり); okkē, OK, all right, fine (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/オッケー); ryōkai, roger, OK (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/了解); makaseru, to leave something up to someone, of which makasete is the te form (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/任せる). Every character of every entry was looked up in UnicodeData.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt), and must be an assigned character. Emoji that default to a picture are left out. The shut eye is Hyphen-minus (U+002D) or Tilde (U+007E) in most entries. "Borrows" under an entry names each character from outside the blocks of punctuation, common symbols and Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Japanese letters, with its script from Scripts.txt (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/Scripts.txt) or, for a Latin or common character, its block from Blocks.txt (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/Blocks.txt). "Is on the emoji list" names each character that has the Emoji property in emoji-data.txt, version 18.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/emoji/emoji-data.txt); here that is Victory hand (U+270C), in 2 entries. "Short" means 6 code points or fewer, spaces counted. "Keyboard only" means every character is printable ASCII. Nothing here says how any one device draws a face. Licence: own work