Circled ideograph low

It is 下, the everyday character for “down” or “below.” 下 is shared by Chinese and Japanese writing (and by Korean hanja): Japanese reads it shita, ge or ka, Mandarin xià, Korean ha. Its shape is a picture of the idea: a horizontal line with a stroke hanging beneath it.

In Japanese, 上・中・下 (upper, middle, lower) is the standard way to split something in three: the volumes of a long novel (上巻, 中巻, 下巻), parts of a series, or grades of quality. Putting the character in a circle turns it into a neat stand-alone label, the same way people circle a number. It belongs to a matching set: ㊤ up, ㊥ middle, ㊦ down, ㊧ left, ㊨ right.

So when you meet ㊦ on a label, a list or a document, read it as “lower,” “bottom” or “part three of three,” depending on what sits next to it.