What 精 means
It is a source-specific form of 精, not a separate word.
The character 精 is used in Chinese and Japanese writing. Depending on the word, it can mean essence, spirit, semen, or something fine or refined. Japanese reference texts may retain 精 when the exact source glyph matters.
A Han-era dictionary, the Shuowen Jiezi, glossed 精 as selected rice and built it from the character for rice plus 青 as a sound cue. Taiwan's Ministry of Education variant-character dictionary describes another form as a regularized version of seal script, an older style used on seals and inscriptions; 精 reflects a clerical-script change. That history belongs to 精; 精 preserves a later source mapping.
Why does 精 become 精?
Unicode normalization maps 精 to 精.
Unicode keeps FA1D as a separate code point so text converted from a source table can preserve which entry it came from. Its source mapping connects FA1D to IBM JTFA1D and U+7CBE 精.
Each of NFC, NFD, NFKC, and NFKD turns 精 into 精. Once that happens, software cannot recover FA1D from the normalized text; fonts may draw the two forms alike or differently.
How do I enter and preserve 精?
Keep the original string before normalization.
Type U+FA1D in a Unicode picker that accepts code points; Japanese conversion from a reading may offer 精 instead.
A Japanese glyph variation sequence, 精 + U+FE00, requests a particular glyph where the font and software support it. It is a glyph request, not the separate code point U+FA1D.
Technical and archival, rather than conversational.
Use ordinary 精 unless the source specifically requires 精; normalization can erase the distinction.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does 精 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.
How to type 精
精\FA1DCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.