Pear Emoji

A green pear. 🍐 is the underdog of the fruit emoji world, one that barely registers in search volume but carries surprising cultural depth. In 2023, it was co-opted by the Pear Ring brand as a signal that you're single and open to meeting someone IRL, turning 🍐 in a bio into a dating signal. In Chinese culture, the pear carries a fascinating duality: it symbolizes immortality and prosperity (pear trees live for centuries), but giving someone a pear is taboo because the word for pear (梨, li) sounds identical to the word for "separation" (离, li). And in British English, "gone pear-shaped" means everything went wrong, originally RAF slang for a failed aerobatic loop.

Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as U+1F350U+1F350 PEAR.

🍐 is quiet but has a few specific lanes.

The Pear Ring: single signal. In 2023, a brand called Pear launched a green ring as the "opposite of an engagement ring," signaling you're single and open to meeting someone in real life. The 🍐 emoji in an Instagram or dating app bio became the digital version of wearing the ring. The first batch sold out internationally, and the brand gained nearly 150K Instagram followers.

Body shape reference. "Pear-shaped" describes a body type with wider hips than shoulders. The emoji sometimes appears in fashion content, body type discussions, and body positivity posts. This use is descriptive, not derogatory.

Gone pear-shaped. British slang for when something goes wrong. "The meeting went pear-shaped 🍐" is a common usage, especially among British or Commonwealth users.

Fruit and food. Poached pears, cheese pairings, fall harvest content. The literal meaning is common but less attention-grabbing than the cultural uses.

The pear has been cultivated for over 3,000 years in Europe and Asia. Homer called pears "gifts of the gods" in The Odyssey. The Romans cultivated over 40 varieties, and European aristocracy prized pears as luxury fruit in their gardens.

The cultural twist comes from China. Pear trees can live for hundreds of years, making them symbols of immortality and long life. Yellow pears in Chinese art represent gold and profit. But the word for pear (梨, li) is a homophone of the word for "separation" (离, li), creating a powerful taboo: you never share a pear with someone you want to stay close to. Cutting a pear in half between two people is especially bad luck, as it literally implies "dividing separation." At weddings and family gatherings, pears are avoided as gifts.

The British idiom "gone pear-shaped" (meaning things went badly wrong) emerged from RAF slang. When a pilot attempted an aerobatic loop, the ideal shape viewed from the ground was a perfect circle. But novice pilots would pull too hard at the top, making the loop oval or, at worst, pear-shaped. First printed in 1983, the phrase entered common British English by the 1990s.

Most recently, the Pear Ring brand launched in 2023 with a simple premise: if singles worldwide wore a green ring to signal availability, we wouldn't need dating apps. The first batch sold out internationally, and 🍐 in a social media bio became shorthand for "I'm single."

1. -800Homer calls pears 'gifts of the gods' in The Odyssey. The Romans cultivate over 40 varieties.
2. 1983First printed use of 'gone pear-shaped' in Air War South Atlantic, describing an RAF incident. The phrase enters mainstream British English by the 1990s.
3. 2010Approved in Unicode 6.0 as U+1F350 PEAR. Added to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.
4. 2023The Pear Ring brand launches, turning 🍐 in a bio into a 'single and available' signal. First batch sells out internationally.↗
5. 2024iOS 17.4 redesigns 🍐 with a slightly glossier render, the first substantive design change in years.
6. 2025"Pear-shaped" crosses fully into US Gen Z vocabulary via British sitcom streaming. 🍐 starts appearing in American tweets about failed plans.

• •In Chinese, the word for pear (梨, li) is a homophone of "separation" (离, li). Sharing or cutting a pear between two people implies you want to part ways. Pears are avoided as gifts at weddings and family gatherings.
• •Despite the separation taboo, Chinese art uses pears positively as symbols of gold and fortune. Pear trees can live for hundreds of years, making them symbols of immortality and longevity.
• •"Gone pear-shaped" is RAF slang from the 1980s. When a pilot's aerobatic loop goes wrong, the shape viewed from the ground looks pear-shaped instead of circular. First printed in 1983.
• •Homer called pears "gifts of the gods" in The Odyssey. The Romans cultivated over 40 varieties.
• •The Pear Ring brand launched in 2023 as "the opposite of an engagement ring." A green ring worn on any finger signals you're single. The first batch sold out internationally and the brand gained nearly 150K Instagram followers.
• •🍐 in a social media bio became a dating signal in 2023: it means you're single and open to meeting someone in real life, as an alternative to dating apps.
• •The Chinese tradition of never sharing a pear is so strong that the phrase fen li (分梨, to divide a pear) is deliberately avoided because it sounds exactly like fen li (分离, to separate).
• •Pears don't ripen on the tree. They're the only major fruit that ripens after being picked, which is why grocery-store pears are rock-hard and you need to leave them on the counter for days before eating.
• •The 18th-century Duke of Chandos grew 400 named pear varieties at his English estate. Today, about 97% of commercial Western pear sales are just three cultivars: Bartlett, Anjou, and Bosc.
• •The Bartlett pear is the same variety as the Williams pear in Europe. Enoch Bartlett renamed it without permission when he bought a Massachusetts orchard in 1817 and started selling the fruit under his own name.
• •Korean bae (Asian pear) is used in kalbi marinades as a tenderizer. The fruit contains calpain-like enzymes that break down meat proteins, which is why grated pear shows up in almost every Korean barbecue recipe.

• •"The Twelve Days of Christmas": "A partridge in a pear tree" is the most recognizable pear reference in English. The line may have originated as a mistranslation of French "une perdrix" (a partridge), which would explain the oddness of a tropical-seeming bird in a northern fruit tree.
• •The Pear Ring (2023): Irish founder Joey Kelly's global anti-dating-app experiment. One green ring, worn on any finger, signals you're single and open to IRL meetings. The brand's first batch sold out worldwide and hit 150K Instagram followers within months.
• •Homer's Odyssey: Homer called pears "gifts of the gods" in one of the earliest recorded pear references in Western literature. The Romans followed with over 40 named varieties.
• •Peep Show, Only Fools and Horses, The Thick of It: British sitcoms are the main vehicle for "gone pear-shaped" entering American ears. The phrase works because it's specific, visual, and slightly absurd.
• •Hyacinth Bucket / Keeping Up Appearances: British comedy's most famous pear-shape-anxious character. Pear-shaped body discourse is a recurring UK sitcom beat.