⺒ CJK Snake Radical

What ⺒ means

⺒ represents a radical form associated with 巳.

A radical is a character part used as a dictionary lookup key. Dictionaries group characters under these keys so you can find a character without knowing its pronunciation. Here, CJK means Chinese, Japanese and Korean, whose writing traditions use Chinese characters.

⺒ lets a text show this radical form as a symbol in its own right. It may look identical to 巳 in your font, but the two are separately encoded. A search for one may miss the other, so use 巳 when you mean the ordinary character.

The snake connection comes through 巳

巳 is the sixth of the twelve Earthly Branches, a traditional Chinese sequence used to label years and other divisions of time. Each branch is paired with a zodiac animal; 巳 is paired with the Snake. This is a calendar association, not a general instruction to write ⺒ for the animal.

The older character 巳 appears in inscriptions on ancient bronze objects. The Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese character dictionary from the Han period, interpreted its shape as a snake. That explanation of its origin is disputed; the zodiac association is well established.

Part of the collection

⼈

Chinese Radicals & Strokes

Don't confuse it with

1

巳

CJK Unified Ideograph-5Df3

The ordinary character, used for the Snake's Earthly Branch. It can look identical to ⺒, but is a different text character.

Questions people ask

1

Why does ⺒ 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.