CJK Compatibility Ideograph FA25

It carries 逸’s word meaning; FA25 preserves an IBM-era code distinction.

In Chinese and Japanese, 逸 can mean to escape or get away; Japanese references also use it for something exceptional. FA25 inherits those meanings from 逸 rather than creating a new sense.

The earliest evidence for 逸 comes from bronze inscriptions—writing cast or cut into objects—from China’s early Spring and Autumn period. Examples are catalogued on the Qin Zi Mao spear and the Qi Chen Man vessel.

Why was 逸 created?

To preserve a distinction in IBM’s older Japanese character set.

FA25 belongs to Unicode’s IBM 32 compatibility set and maps to 逸. These entries let older Japanese text move into Unicode and back without losing which legacy code was used.

This reflects a broader Han-unification compromise: many Chinese, Japanese, and Korean forms share one Unicode character, while some source-specific code points remain for older standards that encoded them separately. FA25 preserves a Japanese computing distinction, not an ancient branch with its own meaning.

Why does 逸 become 逸?

Unicode normalization maps FA25 to 逸.

NFC, NFD, NFKC, and NFKD all map this character to 逸. That makes text easier to compare but removes FA25’s exact code-point distinction; ordinary prose uses 逸 unless source fidelity is the point.

Appearance is not a reliable test: fonts may draw 逸 and 逸 almost identically. The separate Japanese form 逸 can also look close, so check the exact character identity when the source code matters.