<4

What Does <4 Mean?

Expressing Love in a Text

There are over 100 novel ways to express love in a text message. Some of them were invented by the iKids (i.e., Millennials, Generation Z, and Generation A), making them just a few decades old, but many of them have been around for centuries. Here's the one that matters to you: <4 means "I Really Love You."

More Detail...

The characters < and 4 (which together mean "less than four") are used as an emoticon to express intense love. <4 is a play on the <3 emoticon, which represents a heart and means "love" or "I love you." For those who are totally besotted, <4 is a way to add emphasis to a declaration of love. For example:

• Lee: <3.
• Nelly: <4.
• Lee: ???
• Nelly: I really love you.

There are lots more ways of saying "I Love You" online.

Image for <4

When I write <4, I mean this:

<4 is a declaration of love.

Summary of Key Points

"I Really Love You" is the most common definition for <4 on Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

<4
Definition:	I Really Love You
Type:	Icon
Guessability:	4: Difficult to guess
Typical Users:	Adults and Teenagers

An Academic Look at <4

<4 is classified as an emoticon. Emoticons are a way to show emotion in text-based communication. They consist of a small group of symbols arranged to show emotions, such as happiness, sadness, anger, and others, using the letters, numbers, and symbols usually found on a standard keyboard in a typographic approximation of the desired illustration.

Using Numbers in Texts

This video shows the different ways that numbers are used in "text speak":

Example of <4 Used in a Text

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