What 歲 means
Read 歲 as 歲: “year,” “time,” or “age.”
Oracle-bone inscriptions already use 歲 for “year”; later bronze inscriptions use it for “year” and “lifespan.” The early Chinese character dictionary Shuowen Jiezi also glosses 歲 as Jupiter, the “year star”; Jupiter takes about twelve years to circle the sky. These are meanings and history of 歲, which 歲 encodes in a separate form.
Why does 歲 have a separate code point?
It preserves a source-specific entry from Taiwan’s CNS 11643 standard.
Unicode identifies it as TF-4879 from the 15th plane of CNS 11643-2007 and maps it to 歲. A separate code lets text move into and back out of that source character table without losing its original encoded form. This is for text interchange, not a new word.
Will normalization change 歲?
Yes. Normalization maps it to 歲.
Unicode also lists 歲 UFE00 as the standard variation sequence for this form. A variation selector follows a base character to request a particular written form, while 歲 by itself may normalize to 歲.
Who writes 歲
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Related characters
1
Questions people ask
1Why does 歲 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
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How to type or find 歲
- Search it as
- 歲 · cns 11643 · unicode variant
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
歲\2F8F3Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.