What ⺲ means
It marks a component in a character index, not a word. A radical index groups Han characters by a shared part, then by the strokes left after that part.
Ancient Chinese inscriptions on animal bones and turtle shells, and inscriptions on bronze objects, show the related graph 网 as a net and with the meaning “to catch with a net.” Later Chinese dictionaries, including the Shuowen and the Kangxi dictionary, indexed 网 as a radical—a component used to group characters.
A technical reference symbol used to label a character component in radical indexes.
Can I use ⺲ as Chinese text? Use it for radical indexing; for the ordinary word “net,” write 网 in simplified Chinese or 網 in traditional Chinese.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
1
Questions people ask
1Why does ⺲ show as a box on some devices?
Not every system ships a font for the CJK Radicals Supplement block. Where none is installed, the character shows as an empty box; adding a font such as Noto fixes it. The character itself is still correct and copies correctly.
More like this
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How to type or find ⺲
- Search it as
- radical symbol · net radical · character component · ⺫ · 罒 · 网 · 網
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
⺲\2EB2Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.