What 保 means
The whole word decides: protect, maintain, or guarantee.
Mandarin reads it bǎo; Japanese readings include ho and tamotsu.
Where did 保 come from?
Ancient forms depict a person carrying a child. Oracle-bone inscriptions, carved on bones for fortune-telling, and bronze inscriptions preserve this image. Shuowen, an early Chinese character dictionary, defines 保 as “nurture.” The nurturing sense broadened into keeping and guarding.
In China's historical 保甲 household system, a 保 was a group with shared responsibility.
Neutral in ordinary words.
Do not translate every 保 as “protect.”
Who writes 保
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Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
1
Combination ideas
3Questions people ask
1Why does 保 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
More like this
11
Collections with 保
2
How to type or find 保
- Also called
- bao · bǎo
- Search it as
- tamotsu · 保护 · 保護 · 保持 · 保证 · 保證
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
保\4FDDCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.