Daoist medicine character

It means “medicine”; Daoist use narrows it to “self-water.” Its parts 自 (“self”), 家 (“one’s own household”), and 水 (“water”) are read together as 自家水. A traditional explanation linked to the Bozhou Laojun Stele, an inscribed stone monument, identifies this as the mouth’s own 津液 (body fluid), which is why the character can refer to saliva as an inner medicine.

The Bozhou Laojun Stele is cited in the Kangxi Dictionary, a historical Chinese reference work. The character is a Daoist sacred compound that packs an inner-cultivation idea into its parts. Later devotional texts use it for inner medicine; a general dictionary may gloss it as a rare equivalent of 藥 or 药.

What does 𤂼 mean when someone sends it?

Treat it as “medicine” only with Chinese or Daoist context. In a quoted inner-alchemy passage—a Daoist practice of cultivating transformation within the body—it can mean the fluid produced within the body or the medicine cultivated there. In an isolated message, it is an obscure Han character; ask what source the sender means instead of assuming a familiar reading.

In ordinary Chinese writing, 藥 or 药 is used for “medicine.” Choosing 𤂼 instead marks a specialist, historical, or Daoist register: the writer is preserving a source or invoking that tradition.