Han character 𰩓

Its main sense is “look straight at.”

The Shuowen Jiezi, a Chinese dictionary from the Han dynasty, describes 竀 as seeing straight through a hole; later dictionaries also gloss it as “inspect.”

Why does 𰩓 appear as a box?

Some fonts do not include this character’s drawing.

A blank square can be a font fallback; the text may still contain 𰩓.

Why does 竀 mean red in old phrases?

In the fish-tail phrase, it means a shade of red.

A classical passage uses it to describe a fish’s red tail. A second classical source on cloth dyeing places 竀 between paler red after one bath and deeper red after three.